




LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. | 

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Chap, Copyright No. 

Shelf. P Z 3 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 


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Colonel Hdngerford’s Daurhter 

STORY OF AN AMERICAN GIRL 




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CHICAGO 

CHARLES H. KERR & COMPANY 
56 Fifth Avenue 
1890 


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Colonel Hungerford’s Daughter. 


CHAPTER I. 

THE MORNING SIDE SCHOOL. 

Colonel Hungerford had lived for years on a 
farm in the Soldiers’ Belt, a name used to designate 
a wide tract of rich land upon which ex-soldiers 
had located their patents from the government. 
The house stood upon the principal highway lead- 
ing to the count}^ seat three miles away. A half* 
mile to the east was the district schoolhouse, called 
the Morning Side school because the building 
stood upon one of the few hills in the region and 
caught the first rays of morning light. The ample 
yard was well shaded with box-elders, and in a 
neighborhood pasture was a ball ground where 
many a hot struggle was suddenly terminated by 
the ringing of the “Master’s” bell. In front was 
a pretty grove where Sunday-school picnics were 
held, and a farmers’ alliance had an occasional 
rally. There was nothing pretentious about the 
white schoolhouse with its green blinds, but the 
school had a wide reputation for its spelling matches 
and debating club. The teachers who came and 
5 


6 


COLONEL HUNGERFORD’s DAUGHTER 


went with fall and spring were accustomed to say 
that no school in all the region had such smart 
scholars. The Clingmans, Hungerfords, Norwins 
and Culverwells furnished a succession of boys 
and girls who could spell down any school in the 
county; and when little Jack Clingman joined the 
debating club, and made his first speech, the old 
farmers patted him on the back and said that he 
would be a match for the “Little Giant” some 
day. Elwood Hungerford made no effort to keep 
up with Jack Clingman in discussing the state of 
the Union and other big subjects which were dis- 
posed of by the Morning Side debaters. But in 
their classes they were always rivals, as they were 
also on the ball ground at noon. But for all that, 
they were great friends, and when the winter 
school was over, they were often seen mounted on 
fine colts galloping down the road together. 

Lindell Norwin was three years younger and a 
great admirer of Jack and Elwood, in spite of the 
fact that they refused to take him into their com- 
pany. They had picked up enough of city ver- 
nacular to declare that they did not want a kid in 
their set. But Lindell was a great-, favorite with 
his teachers, who often flattered him with the re- 
mark that intellectually he was a head taller than 
any boy of his age they ever knew, and he thought 
that this ought to count for something with the big- 
ger boys. 


THE MORNING SIDE SCHOOL 


T 


But Liiidell’s father was poor, and the Hunger- 
fords and Clingmans had a whole section each in 
their farms, some fine coal lands, and horses and 
cattle in droves; and their family connections were 
influential and aristocratic. LindelTs mother said 
that he was left out by the other boys because he 
did not have a fine horse to ride. Whether this 
was true or not, it was Mrs. Norwin’s way of ex- 
plaining pretty nearly everything that went amiss 
with the Norwin family. For Mr. Norwin was 
one of those learned farmers who was always long 
on knowledge and short on crops. He knew more 
about geological formations and soils and got less 
out of his own soil than any other man in the 
county. He would have made a typical amateur 
farmer if he had been a member of some other 
profession, that is, a man who is not kept by his 
farm, but his farm is kept by him. He was al- 
ways “reading up” when the other farmers were 
up and at it, and as a result his fields were never 
up with the procession of the seasons, and his 
crops were poor and his horses and cattle lean. 

Mrs. Norwin hoped that her husband would 
awake some day, but when this began to seem 
impossible, her heart and hope turned strongly to- 
ward her boy as the only expectation of the fam- 
ily; and as her eagerness for his future success in- 
tensified she became the more sensitive to all the 


8 


COLONEL HUNGERFORD’s DAUGHTER 


chill winds which blew across his path. Besides, 
she had finished her school days in the same acad- 
emy in the East with Mrs. Hungerford and Mrs. 
Clingman, and had gone out into life with as great 
ambition for the future as the ambitious and hand- 
some girls who had admired her as a brilliant stu- 
dent and loved her as a friend. That they all had, 
found themselves neighbors again after marriage, 
in a western community, was simply taken as one 
of those things which happen in life, without other 
attempt at explanation. But somehow there began 
to float in Mrs. Norwin’s mind a mist}^ conception 
of a future fate in which their children were to 
cross one another’s paths, and what if this was but 
the schoolboy beginning of a reality over which 
the years would drop light or somber shadows? 
She looked at the two happy young boys as they 
galloped past the door, glanced, at Lindell’s dis- 
appointed face, sighed and said in her heart, ‘‘Will 
they always ride and Lindell stand and see them 
go by?” 

THE CALL TO ARMS. 

When the War of the Rebellion broke out the 
Soldiers’ Belt was stirred by the call to arms. A 
flag was flung to the breeze from the Morning Side 
schoolhouse, and the farmers and their sons gath- 
ered at the tap of the drum, heard the appeals of 


THE xMORNING SIDE SCHOOL 9 

common men suddenly turned into eloquent ora- 
tors, and at once enrolled themselves in a company. 
In the election of officers Mr. Hungerford was 
made captain of the company by a small majority 
over Tom Culverwell, whose dashing ways made 
him a special favorite with the young men. Cap- 
tain Clingman, who was Tom’s uncle, and who 
had got his own title as commander of a militia 
company, was keenly disappointed, but it was no 
part of his philosophy to mourn over the past, and 
he was a man of many expedients, a manipulator, 
to be plain about it. Hence when the time came 
for organizing the regiment at Millersburg, the 
count}^ seat, Captain Clingman had a combination 
formed which made Captain Hungerford a major 
and helped Tom Culverwell up to the first lieuten- 
anc}^ 

During the blood}^ and disastrous battles in Vir- 
ginia the colonel of the regiment was killed and 
the lieutenant-colonel so severely wounded that he 
was not able to return to his command, and re- 
signed. It was while the regiment was on its 
way to Gettysburg that Major Hungerford was 
commissioned colonel. The loss of the regiment 
in that great battle was heavy, and in one of the 
fiercest struggles Colonel Hungerford’s life was 
saved only by the daring of Lieutenant Culverwell, 
who dashed into the face of a Confederate cavalry- 


lO 


COLONEL HUNGERFORD’s DAUGHTER 


man just as the latter was aiming a deadly blow 
with his saber at the head of the commander of 
the regiment. The shock threw both men from 
their horses and Culverwell was taken prisoner, 
but escaped during the last day of the battle, and 
made his way back to the regiment looking very 
much as if he had been run over by a whole corps 
of the Confederate army. After this there was 
nothing which Colonel Hungerford would not do 
for Tom Culverwell, and when the regiment was 
disbanded he promised his brave comrade and 
neighbor his life-long fidelity. 

But the war brought to the Hungerfords a great 
sorrow as well as real honor. Jack Clingman and 
Elwood Hungerford were in their teens when the}^ 
saw their fathers ride away to the front, and it was 
only by the sternest parental authority that they 
were kept at home. But after a year of fretting and 
planning they slipped away and joined a regiment 
which was sent to the army in Tennessee. Two 
years later Lindell Norwin appeared in camp and 
begged to be enrolled in the company with his old 
schoolmates. The captain had once been a teacher 
of the Morning Side school, and when Lindell 
presented him a letter from his mother, he smiled 
and replied: “If you have as much ambition as 
your mother has for you, you will make a good 
s.oldier in spite of your youth. She seems to be 


THE MORNING SIDE SCHOOL 


II 


afraid that 3'our neighbors’ boys will get ahead of 
you.” 

At the battle of Franklin the company was at 
the outpost against which the enemy hurled its first 
fierce and desperate assault, andElwood Hunger- 
ford was mortally wounded. His schoolmates 
caught him up in their arms and took him to the 
rear. Lindell was ordered by the commanding 
officer to take care of him, while Jack hurried 
back to the front. Deep into the night Lindell 
watched over the flickering life, striving in vain 
to staunch the bleeding wound and praying every 
moment for the coming of a surgeon. But none 
came, and the pallor on the face of his fallen com- 
rade told him that death was at hand. There was 
a struggle and an attempt to rally, and then a 
faint whisper; and bending over, he heard the dy- 
ing soldier say: 

“Take me in your arms, and be home, father 
and mother to me. For I shall never see my home 
again ; never go up the old walk as I have dreamed 
for the past two years that I should do some day; 
never look into their faces again. It is hard — 
but it is for my country and I am a soldier. When 
you reach home go to my mother and tell her that 
I died speaking her name, and kiss little Helen 
for me, and tell father that I fell where the fight 
was fiercest, at the very front edge of the battle,” 


12 


COLONEL HUNGERFORD’s DAUGHTER 


And then there was a fainter whisper, “Mother, 
dear mother,” and whatever visions Elwood Hun- 
gerford had seen as he came and went to the little 
schoolhouse on the hill were at an end, but his 
name was on the roll of the world’s dead heroes. 

Themext da}^ after the battle Jack was made a 
lieutenant in the fragment of the company which 
came out of the bloody struggle, for his conspicu- 
ous courage, and Lindell was detailed for service 
at headquarters. “That is a likel3^bo3%” was the 
general’s remark as the young soldier passed into 
the weather-beaten tent which housed the staff. 

A few months later the war ended, and both 
were mustered out of service and returned to their 
homes. 

“And Elwood Hungerford died in your arms,” 
said Lindell’s mother after the first excitement of 
their meeting was over. 

“Yes, mother; it was an awful night. It seemed 
so dreadful for him to die so far from home, and 
so young. To-morrow I must go and give his 
last message to his father and mother.” 

“Poor woman; she was almost heartbroken 
when the news came, and she drove over here a 
number of times to get any little word that she 
thought you might have written about him. I told 
her everything, but still she came and asked so 
eagerly that I was quite broken up over it myself. 


THE MORNING SIDE SCHOOL 


13 


Even when the colonel came home with all his 
honor, and the great welcome was given him in the 
city, she hardly smiled. You must tell her every- 
thing. For words and looks are precious when 
they are the last.” 

Long after he had retired, Lindell lay awake 
thinking of the mission which was to take him to 
the Hungerfords’ the next day. He had always 
stood in awe of the father when he was plain Mr. 
Hungerford, and now that he had worn the eagles 
on his shoulders, he Telt that it would be harder 
than ever to address him. But the mother and 
Helen, how could he ever convey to them all that 
was in the last look, and the love of that voice 
sinking into the hush of death? Helen was only 
a child of twelve and he a youth of seventeen. 
But there was many a time when he had looked 
back over his shoulder at her as she went down 
the hill from the schoolhouse gate, and many a 
time that a smile from her prett}^ young face had 
made him happy through the day. And often, 
when he caught the first glimpse of the evening 
star, he thought of her with a half hope that it 
might mean something in the future. 

“I have been eagerly looking for you,” said 
Mrs. Hungerford as she met him half-way down 
the walk. “I know you must be tired with your 
walk. Do not try to tell me anything until you 


14 COLONEL HUNGERFORD’s DAUGHTER 

are rested.” But boys are never tired much or 
long, and returned soldiers are quick to tell their 
story. When he had finished, Mrs. Hungerford 
sat with her face bathed in tears. Colonel Hunger- 
ford thanked him again and again, and then 
walked down to the gate with him. A splendid 
horse, saddled and bridled, stood at the hitching 
post. 

“I want you to mount this horse, for it is yours,” 
said the colonel. 

•‘Oh, no, I cannot do th^,” was the quick re- 
ply. 

“But how can I repay you for your kindness to 
my poor dying boy?” 

“You owe me nothing. For you commanded a 
regiment and know that soldiers have nothing to 
do but duty. After they volunteer, all is duty. 
That was dut}’. Good evening. Colonel Hunger- 
ford.” 

And the young soldier hurried away. But be- 
fore he reached home he had asked himself many 
times why little Helen did not appear. 

“It was only because she had grown taller and 
become shy,” said his mother. 

“ But,” she added with a smile, “veterans should 
not be thinking of little girls of twelve.” Lindell 
grew so silent that she left him, and went into the. 
house to talk with Mr. Norwin about trying to get 
him off for college the next fall. 


THE MORNING SIDE SCHOOL, 


15 


‘^We are going to have a good crop for once,” 
she said, “and prices are still war high, and I 
think we can afford it, don’t you? He is our only 
son, you know.” 

“Well, I suppose we can afford it if we have to. 
But if he is going off to school, I wish he had 
taken that horse. It would have helped to pay the 
bills.” 

“So it would, but it would also have spoiled a 
fine page in the boy’s memory. Some things are 
good only when they are not paid for.” 

“That is so, but if Captain Clingman don’t make 
the colonel pay for Tom’s saving his life at Gettys- 
burg some of these days, then I don’t know men.” 

Now if there was anything which Mrs. Norwin 
thought her husband knew, it was men, and she 
laid his remark away for future reference. 

“But there is some advantage in having your 
neighbors indebted to you,” she remarked, “and 
Colonel Hungerford will have a great gift for 
somebody as the years go by.” 

“You can rest assured that they will never for- 
get their debt, but if you are thinking of his daugh- 
ter, don’t toy with that ambition. Somebody might 
get disappointed. There is a queenly air on that 
young girl’s face which seems to say, ‘1 am sure 
to make my own destiny. Don’t try to play oak 
to my vine.’ In fact, if she was not such a beau- 


1 6 COLONEL HUNGERFORd’s DAUGHTER 

tiful child, I should expect her to be a woman’s 
rights woman some day.” 

“That is to say, you think women of that class 
are generally rather plain.” 

“Oh, no, I did not say so, but somehow pretty 
women are not often seen on the platform throw- 
ing their arms out wildly after more rights. They 
get their hands on the scepter without becoming 
‘shrieking sisters.’” 

“There is nothing sarcastic about that, of course, 
but there are some things in this world that ought 
to make every sister shriek, whether she is plain 
or pretty.” 


CHAPTER II. 


A POLITICAL PLOT. 

When autumn came Lindell Norwin was sent 
away to school, and Jack Clingman, who had 
studied Latin as far as Virgil before he went to the 
army, entered his uncle’s law office in Millersburg. 
The years went by and Lindell graduated from 
college at the age of twenty-two, and then went into 
journalism in New York City. 

Jack hung out the sign, “John W. Clingman, At- 
torney at Law,” and soon had a fine practice and 
not a little popularity throughout the county. The 
prophecies which his old neighbors in the debating 
society made about his future were fast being ful- 
filled. He was a great favorite at mass meetings, 
and but few juries could hold out against his per- 
suasive eloquence. 

But no man in the county was as popular as 
Colonel Hungerford. He was idolized by all the 
men who had been in his regiment, and they were 
scattered over the whole district. And he was in 
warm sympathy with the farmers in the Granger 
movement which swept over the West in 1873. The 
17 


1 8 COLONEL HUNGERFORD’s DAUGHTER 

feeling respecting railroad discriminations reached 
an intensity that year which was irresistible, and 
left its permanent impress. 

The congressional campaign was approaching, 
and everything pointed towards the nomination 
of the colonel as the man to save the district for the 
party. 

“We must have a man whom the farmers want,” 
said the local papers, “or the tide which is rolling 
over the countr}" will sweep us out to sea.” 

It was at the beginning of this agitation that 
Colonel Hungerford said to his wife, after return- 
ing from Millersburg one evening, “Some of the 
politicians want me to run for governor.” 

“For governor!” said Mrs. Hungerford with 
surprise. “I thought they were talking of nominat- 
ing you for Congress.” 

“So they were, but now Captain Clingman, 
Tom Culverwell and Judge Barrier insist that with 
my popularity among the farmers and record as a 
soldier I could swing a longer pole and knock 
down a bigger plum.” 

“And are you going to try it?” said Mrs. Hun- 
gerford with increasing animation. 

“No, dear.” 

“Why?” 

“Mostly because I could not get the nomination. 
Captain Clingman is deep, and so are the rail- 


A POLITICAL PLOT 


19 

road men. They do not fight those who are op- 
posed to them as the rebels did us at Gettysburg, 
face to face, hand to hand. They let a man down 
some other way. Captain Clingman and Judge 
Barrier know well enough that I could not run the 
machine’s candidate for governor off the track. 
But they hope to side-track me in the congres- 
sional race. They know that I cannot or would 
not be a candidate for two nominations. If I stand 
for governor, that means that I give up the race for 
Congress. I hope I have lived too long to be 
caught in that trap.” 

A slight shadow of disappointment passed over 
Mrs. Hungerford’s face; for sh^ was ambitious. 

“But you intend to run for Congress?” 

“I am in the hands of my friends,” said the 
colonel with a waggish look. 

The next week the county newspapers an- 
nounced that Colonel Hungerford would under no 
consideration be a candidate for governor. A 
few nights afterward, if the man who was returning 
home late along the principal street of Millersburg 
had looked up at Judge Barrier’s office window, he 
would have seen the lights still burning. Within 
were the judge himself. Captain Clingman, Tom 
Culverwell and one other. Tom had just returned 
from a thorough canvass of the district, and report- 
ed that Colonel Hungerford was everywhere the 


20 


COLONEL HUNGERFORD’s DAUGHTER 


favorite except with the men who were in the ring. 

“And this would be a bad year for a machine 
candidate,” he added. 

“Hungerford will be nominated if we don’t do 
something,” said the judge, “and then we shall 
have a congressman from this district opposed to 
the railroads, and the next thing you know there 
will be an investigating committee trying to find 
out why you and Captain Clingman are getting 
rich off your coal lands and the colonel is making 
nothing out of his mines. The first thing you 
know he will be on that rebate business b}^ which 
we get fifty cents^a ton and he does not. And an- 
other thing, the whole county will find out whj^ 
these Millersburg butchers had to close up and the 
new butchers buy their meat from the Chicago 
packing houses. 

“This thing of making the farmers ship all their 
fat stock to Chicago and the butchers all their meat 
back again in order that the Chicago millionaires 
may collect one toll and the railroad companies 
two, is not a matter which will bear very strong 
light. 

“Colonel Hungerford has got to be beaten. 
What is your plan, Clingman ?” But Captain Cling- 
man was silent. 

“Why not take the colonel into the ring,” said 
Culverwell. 


A POLITICAL plot 


21 


^‘Because he would not come in,” said the cap- 
tain. 

“What, then, would you do?” 

“There is only one thing to do.” 

“And what is that?” eagerly asked the judge. 

“Make Jack the candidate. He was raised 
among the farmers, is a farmer’s son, is a pet 
speaker with the farmers and almost as popular as 
the colonel himself; and he would run like wildfire 
if we ever got him started. He has never been 
charged with being a railroad man, for there are 
lots of things that the farmers do not know.” 

“And there are lots of ambitious mammas in this 
county who would like to have him for a son-in- 
law,” said Culverwell, “and they would bring their 
hard-headed husbands around.” 

“But,” said the judge, impatiently, “how are 
you going to get the colonel off the track? Of 
course Jack would be a capital candidate, but the 
faster the trains, the worse the collision when 
they are both on the same track, and we don’t 
want to have a party smash-up.” 

“I’ll fix that,” replied Captain Clingman. “Tom 
will go home with me to-night, and we will see 
you later on.” 

Judge Barrier’s confidence in Captain Cling- 
man ’s ability to fix things was as great as that of 
his nephew, and the midnight council broke up 


22 COLONEL HUNGERFORD*S DAUGHTER 

with a solemn conviction that Colonel Hungerford 
would not go to Congress. 

When once in their carriage and out in the 
loneliness of the country road, the captain unfolded 
his plan. 

‘‘Tom,” he said, “you will have to do something 
that you may not like. But you know that I 
formed the combination that made Hungerford a 
major and you a lieutenant, and that it ended in 
his becoming colonel, and in your saving his life. 
And you know that his last word to you, when 
you both took off your shoulder-straps and returned 
to private life, was that he would hold himself un- 
der everlasting obligation to you. I don’t suppose 
that you ever intended to draw a check on him 
for the amount, and you have already got glory 
enough out of it to turn any other young man’s 
head. But with you and me this is business as 
well as politics, and business is business, and sen- 
timent must give way to politics. If you ask Colo- 
nel Hungerford to stand aside for your dear 
cousin Jack, the pride of the Clingman and Culver- 
well families, as a personal favor to yourself, he 
will do it. I know him from awaj^ back; he has 
an awful sense of honor, too much by miles for 
politics.” 

“But you know I believe in the power behind 
the throne, and Mrs. Hungerford is a very ambi- 


A rOLITICAL PLOT 


23 


tious woman. Nothing would please her better 
than to go to Washington with the colonel; be- 
sides, Helen is to come out of college this summer. 
What a great thing it would be to give her a chance 
in Washington society! For they say that she is 
the handsomest and most talented young woman 
that ever came out of the Soldier’s Belt, and our 
county has always been famous for its country 
belles. You will not get the colonel’s wife to con- 
sent to such an arrangement; and the colonel 
pledged himself to her before he did to me.” 

They drove a mile or more before another word 
was spoken. Then as they drew up at the gate 
the captain replied, “ What if something else should 
happen before the convention meets? I heard Jack 
say awhile ago, when his sisters were teasing him 
about a wife, that he was waiting for Helen Hun- 
gerford to get through college, and now that she 
will soon come back a graduate with flying col- 
ors, pretty and full of romantic ideas, perhaps Jack 
will be smitten, and Helen could hardly help 
thinking it a tremendous stroke of good fortune to 
go right from college into Washington society as 
the wife of a brilliant and handsome 3"Oung con- 
gressman. Just think what might happen if Jack 
should get smitten with her and lay siege to her 
heart! Mrs. Hungerford has always been very fond 
of Jack, and it might quite reconcile her to staying 
at home. 


^4 COLONEL HUNGERFORD^S DAUGHTER 

“For there comes a time when we transfer our 
ambitious hopes to our children. A mother looks 
in the glass and sees that the bloom is gone from 
her cheeks. She looks in her daughter’s face and 
it is there. After tbat the mother passes her hopes 
over to the daughter. Don’t you see that is why 
I am pushing Jack for Congress? I have stopped 
reaching up to the withering boughs of age for 
political plums and am centering everything on 
Jack.” 

“Oh, fudge! You just said that business is busi- 
ness, and now you are mixing sentiment, poetry 
and politics. It shows that two o’clock in the 
morning is too late for you to be out. Let us drive 
in, put up the horses and go to bed.” 

“All right. We won’t worry. But mark my 
words for it, there will be no collision between 
the Hungerfords and the Clingmans. Colonel 
Hungerford and myself have never been warm 
friends, but our children have alwa37S made up for 
all coldness. 

“There are months yet before the convention, 
and in the meantime we must keep the newspapers 
talking about John W. Clingman, the brilliant at- 
torne}^ the brave ex-soldier, the farmers’ friend 
and the man with a future. And we must have 
him at all the Granger meetings and all the pic- 
nics in the district.” 


A POLITICAL PLOT 


25 


“ One word more, uncle,” said Tom ; “ who was 
that other man in the office to-night?” 

“I don’t know him, but understand that he is 
some friend of the judge.” 

SAMMY SUDDENDROP. 

The following morning there was a little epi- 
sode in the usually smooth history of the Hunger- 
ford house. 

“Sammy, you were out very late last night,” 
said Mrs. Hungerford at the breakfast table, with 
a tone of severity unusual for her. “You have 
been out every night this week, and when it comes 
to two o’clock in the morning, it is time to call a 
halt and start an investigation. There is only one 
safe place for a boy at midnight, and that is in 
bed. Boys see better at night by closing their 
eyes and going to sleep. The best thing that even 
guardian angels can do for them is to tuck them 
under the coverlets. I am not exactly an angel, 
but I cannot have you out at night. Where were 
you, Sammy?” Sammy glanced appealingly at 
the colonel, then riveted his gaze on his plate of 
hot buckwheat cakes and said nothing. 

Mrs. Hungerford riveted her gaze alternately on 
Sammy and her husband, and quickly concluded to 
say jothing more herself. It was easy enough to 
understand that the colonel meant something by 


26 COLONEL HUNGERFORd’s DAUGHTER 

trying to signal to Sammy under the table with 
his foot, if he did miss the boy’s foot and hit her 
own. 

Now Sammy Suddendrop was a boy of nineteen 
whose father lost his life in the colonel’s regiment 
at Antietam, and whose mother never recovered 
from the shock, but went into consumption and 
died the next spring. Every day for weeks before 
her death Mrs. Hungerford drove over to her little 
house by the blacksmith shop, for that was Dave 
Suddendrop’s trade before he threw his hammer 
down on the anvil with the exclamation that he 
would not set any more horseshoes until he had 
helped to set the country to rights. In her last 
moments the poor young mother said; “I have but 
two wishes, that Sammy ma}^ find a good home, 
and that they will bring my husband’s body back 
from Antietam so that we may sleep our last sleep 
together on the hillside, and that Sammy ma}^ see 
the people strew flowers upon the grave of his sol- 
dier father. If he sees a wreath of honor lying 
upon the tombstone every year, it will help to 
make a man of him.” Then Mrs. Hungerford 
put her arm under the shrunken little neck, stroked 
the rich brown hair, and with a kiss on the white 
forehead, sealed her promise to the dying young 
mother that her boy should never be without a 
home while she had one of her own. 


A POLITICAL PLOT 


27 


When the funeral was over, she gathered up the 
boy, his tattered books and other belongings, put 
them in her carriage and took them home with 
her. Sammy was too young to be much saddened 
by the loss of his mother, and Mrs. Hungerford’s 
heart was too tender, with the vision of a dying 
face before her, to adopt strict methods of disci- 
pline at the start, all the more needed because dur- 
ing his mother’s sickness he had lapsed into law- 
lessness. 

The result was that she had a harum-scarum lad 
on her hands, who never thought the farm big 
enough, who knocked down the plums and apples 
before they were ripe, went swimming and fishing 
instead of to school, broke into the neighbors’ water- 
melon patches, tormented the patience out of all 
his Sunday-school teachers, got into disastrous 
complications with his day teachers, had serious 
collisions with the farm hands, and was in immi- 
nent danger of being voted an irredeemable nui- 
sance by the whole neighborhood. 

But Mrs. Hungerford read a quotation from 
Burke one day that “law is benevolence working 
by rule;” then there was a change of administra- 
tion. “Sammy’s father died to maintain the au- 
thority of government,” she said to herself, “and 
here I have been letting this boy grow up in law- 
lessness. Benevolence is going to work by rule 


28 COLONEL HUNGERFORd’s DAUGHTER 

now, and Sammy will have to walk the line here- 
after.” 

It was hard work, and Sammy was in his teens 
before he was willing to admit that somebody had 
got to surrender, and that it was not likel}^ to be 
the lady of the house. “She has a great heart,” 
he said to himself one evening as he rode a colt to 
the pasture for the cows. “She can talk so softly 
and smile so sweetly that 3^ou think she is better 
than an angel, and if you wanted to tell her a lie 
it would stick in your throat; but gracious, what 
a will she’s got! I never saw her cry but once 
since I’ve been here, and that was when she was 
looking at Elwood’s old blue coat with the bullet- 
hole in it and the blood-stain, and one other time 
when Helen went away to school. She watched 
the- buggy until it was out of sight, then she came 
back to the house, went upstairs, looked intb Hel- 
en’s empty room, came down again and burst into 
tears. 

“‘When you send girls away to school,’ she 
said, ‘they are gone. You never get anything but 
snatches of them again.’ But then, who would not 
cry over Helen’s going away? I went around 
behind the barn that morning and cried myself. 
I would rather have the frost catch the peach crop, 
and the bugs eat up all the watermelon vines, than 
to have Helen away all the fall, winter and spring. 


A POLITICAL PLOT 


29 


“ But what is the use of fooling? I might as 
well give up the fight with her and get around on 
the sunny side of the house. It alwa3’’s feels mighty 
cold when Mrs. Hungerford don’t smile. I suppose, 
anyhow, that a bo\^ is like this colt. It needs lots 
of pulling and hauling on the reins until it learns 
to keep the road. If I take the road and keep it, 
that will end the racket, and I’ll get somewhere 
the time I’m a man.” 

Sammy’s new resolution worked a great change. 
But his rollicking disposition and love of fun 
were so irrepressible that the colonel said he was 
cut out for an end man in a minstrel company, or 
clown in a circus. Mrs. Hungerford thought that 
he ought to be sent to college, that he could join 
a glee club and be the wit; for college glee clubs 
were in sore need of men who could be funny when 
they tried to be. But Sammy said that the farm 
was good enough for him, that Abraham Lincoln 
never went to college, and he got there. He would 
rather stud^" the stars first-hand on a summer night, 
and as for Latin and Greek, they were dead lan- 
guages anyhow, with dictionaries full of roots and 
stems. If there was anything he despised, it was 
to strike dead roots with the plow, and he was not 
going to college to hunt for them. Anyhow, Helen 
would bring home college honors enough for the 
whole family. After that the college matter was 


30 COLONEL HUNGERFORD’s DAUGHTER 

not pressed. For Mrs. Hungerford observed, ‘‘You 
can’t drive a boy into an education. For one you 
may open the gate and put a purse in bis hand, 
but he won’t go through. Another comes up 
ragged and barefooted, and if the gate is barred 
he climbs over the wall and comes out with the 
laurel on his brow. Besides, she felt that she had 
accomplished something for Sammy in restoring 
him to civilized ways. 

But now that he was staying out at night she 
was troubled. Visions of saloons, of groups of bad 
boys on street corners where speech is corrupting, 
and hosts of other evil things which fly across a 
worried mother’s imagination, rose up before her. 
Though disconcerted by her dash into the matter 
at the breakfast table, she was determined to know 
more about it. Sammy kept well out of her way 
all day, but in the evening while standing at the 
back gate with the bridle rein of his young riding 
horse in hand, and taking a word of instruction 
from the colonel, he received a message from 
Mrs. Hungerford that she wanted to see him before 
he went to town. 

“What shall I say to her ?” he asked the colonel. 

“Tell her all you know, and I will tell her the 
rest.” 

Sammy told her that he was very sorry that she 
was so much troubled about him, that he was not 


A POLITICAL PLOT 


31 


going wild, and had not set out for ruin, but that 
“he was running this line of business on orders 
from headquarters.” “That man who was here 
the other day, who didn’t leave his name,” he 
said, “made the colonel feel as I suppose he used 
to feel when there was a battle in the air; and he 
has kept me going down-town every night since to 
see what I could find out about him, who he was 
in company with, whether he went to saloons or 
up the Poker Stairway in Rich’s Block, or — to — 
to — bed.” 

“And what did 3^ou find out, Sammy?” 

“That he went to Judge Barrier’s office one 
or two evenings for a while, and every evening 
slipped up the Poker Stairway, when he thought 
nobody was looking.” 

“You have turned detective, I see; but go on.” 

“I have not far to go. Last night he went to 
Barrier’s office and stayed there until after mid- 
night. I don’t want to tell you who else was 
there, for I was not the only night owl out this way 
last night. But when he and the judge came out, 
they looked up and down the street, and I heard 
the judge say, ‘We’ll fix the colonel all right.’ 
That was all I heard, they talked so low.” 

That evening there was a bright fire in the par- 
lor grate to take the chill off the air, and Mrs. 
Hungerford was assiduous in her attention to her 


32 COLONEL HUNGERFORD’s DAUGHTER 

husband’s comfort. He easily slipped into a con- 
fiding mood and explained matters. 

‘^The man who was here that day,” he said, 
“claimed to be the representative of some heirs in 
New York City who dispute the title to this sec- 
tion of land on which we live.” 

“Ah, there it is,” said Mrs. Hungerford with a 
start. “Father never did believe in having any- 
thing to do with these ‘patent lands.’ He always 
said that the titles were not safe, that they were 
generally the best lands, but what good would 
they do, if you lost your home and all 3mur labor, 
or had to pay a big sum to clear the title? And 
now here it comes, just when we are having so 
much trouble with the coal land.” 

“But it is not so bad as that, Frances. The man 
says that the wife of John Thomas Jones, whose 
name appears in the abstract two or three transfers 
back, never signed the deed and wouldn’t sign it, 
because her money bought the propert}^ and she 
didn’t want her husband to get the money, and 
now their children, who are scattered over the 
country, have sent this man on to claim their in- 
terest. I did not buy from Jones and so did not 
inquire about the wife’s signature. When I con- 
sulted John Clingman, the other day, he said that 
he discovered while going over the records sever- 
al years ago that there was no wife’s signature to 


A POLITICAL PLOT 


33 


the Jones deed for my section, but it did appear in 
the deed for his father’s section, which was given by 
Jones a year later. It puzzled him a little, he said, 
but he concluded that Jones was enjoying single 
blessedness'when he gave the first deed, and that a 
year later he had married. He also said that when 
he spoke to his father about it, the captain told 
him to pay no attention to it, that if it was stirred 
up it would worry Mrs. Hungerford, for the El- 
woods always were afraid of patent titles, and if 
let alone probably nothing would ever be heard of 
it. I wrote at once to Lindell Norwin to engage 
a reliable attorney for me to investigate the mat- 
ter in New York. But at the same time I suspected 
that the fellow is a sharper or blackleg, and I have 
kept Sammy on his track, for he is like his father, 
secretive and trusty. Dave Suddendrop was the 
best man in the regiment to find out what was go- 
ing on along the line.” 

“But why does the man go to Judge Barrier’s 
office?” 

“That is what puzzles me.” 

“And who were the other men that were there 
last night?” 

“Two of our neighbors, but don’t ask their 
names just yet.” 

“But why were the}^ there?” 

“ I think it was because they may be uneasy about 
the title to their property.” 



I- 

u 


*34 COLONEL HUNGERFORD’s DAUGHTER 



' - .v - 

I'"- 




‘‘Are you sure that is all?” 

“No; as the saying is, a man can’t be sure of 
anything but death and taxes. I am sure, how- 
ever, that the man is a gambler and a bad one.” 

“I think there is more in this matter. The men 
who came out of that office at two o’clock last night 
are politicians, you know.” 


CHAPTER III. 


HOME FROM COLLEGE. 

It was two days since Helen Hungerford’s re- 
turn from college, and on this beautiful June morn- 
ing she sat by an open window which looked out 
upon the yard, rich in greensward and flowers, 
and across the low-trimmed hedges of the highway 
to lovely hills which, sloped away to a distant 
stream. The air was laden with the fragrance of 
roses, and musical with the songs of birds and the 
hum of bees as they dropped into the flowers. 
Grass, shrubs and trees were glittering in the sun- 
light, and the whole outer world was bathed in 
summer splendor. As she gazed across the fields 
where shade trees stood up so round and still, she 
exclaimed: “What can be more beautiful than a 
perfect summer morning?” 

It was a joyous welcome from nature to a spirit 
freed from a long course of classical study. “We 
salute you, we salute you, with the breath of 
morning, with the fragrance of the field, with the 
joy of the earth,” was what in her buoyant mood 
everything seemed to say to her. 

35 


86 COLONEL HUNGERFORd’s DAUGHTER 

Helen had come home with the valedictorian’s 
honors, a beautiful young woman, not quite twenty- 
one. In person she was a little above medium 
height, with fine form, gracefull}^ poised head, 
eyes of much depth and meaning slightly veiled 
b}’ long lashes, natural color and winsome smile, 
and a voice so modulated as to be at once an inti- 
mation of music and earnestness. It was no small 
part of the persuasive influence which she wielded 
over others. 

Her father’s insistence on a soldier’s erectness, 
her constant exercise on horseback from childhood, 
and the freedom of gardens, orchards and mead- 
ows and open highways, had given her a vigor of 
health which carried her through the trying ordeal 
of a long course of study without break of time or 
drawback. 

A great favorite with her teachers, and popular 
with her schoolmates, she had been much petted 
and flattered, with the effect of increasing her spirit 
of independence rather than her pride or vanit}^ 
Too completely absorbed in her college career and 
its opportunities and duties to think much of her- 
self, and too uniformly successful in mastering her 
tasks to seriously consider life’s difficulties, she 
had acquired the habit of moving forward to what- 
ever came next without asking many questions of 
herself or the world. She gave the impression of 


HOME FROM COLLEGE 


37 


expecting success without seeming to be egotistical, 
and her teachers and friends thought of nothing 
for her but a fine career. 

‘‘She has wonderful poise,” said the president 
of the college, “and if she makes a serious mistake 
in marriage or in the management of life’s affairs, 
I shall be greatly surprised.” 

The troops of girls who were laughing, shout- 
ing, crying and kissing one another at the depot 
said, “Happy Helen, don’t forget us in the fine 
days to come.” 

The two days since her return had been spent 
with her mother, who gazed at her with a deep, 
yearning look which seemed to sa}^ “If I could 
only keep you this near me always.” There were 
many questions to ask on both sides; on Helen’s 
side about the old neighbors and schoolmates, and 
all the happenings in the Soldiers’ Belt; and on 
the mother’s side about the newest ideas in college 
circles and the battle with books and board. “The 
battle with books,” said Helen, “was more easy, 
certain and satisfactory than the battle with board. 
Sometimes I think that the matron of a boarding 
school does not believe that there is any waste of 
tissue in a girl student’s system, or that she has an 
appetite for anything but table etiquette. If you 
help a boy to scant allowance, he clears off his plate 
so suddenly that you can’t help knowing that 


38 COLONEL HUNGERFORD’s DAUGHTER 

there is a large vacuum down below which he ab- 
hors as much as nature. But girls are not given 
to knife and fork rushes or ‘cane rushes ’ How- 
ever, I don’t look as though I had suffered much, 
do I, mother?” “No,” was the reply, “and I pre- 
sume that most boarding school girls suffer more 
in imagination than otherwise.” 

While Helen sat by the window her mother 
was cutting rosebuds which were opening on the 
bushes down by the front gate. A gentleman who 
was passing, in a smart road wagon drawn by a 
handsome pair of chestnut-sorrels, reined up his 
horses and stopped for a few minutes. 

“Who was that gentleman?” said Helen, after 
her mother had pinned a bunch of lovely rosebuds 
upon her bosom, and placed another in her dark 
brown hair. 

“That was John Clingman. He is going out to 
the old home to spend the day. I asked him to 
call on his way back. He said he should be happy 
to do so, and present you his congratulations on 
your successful finish at college.” 

“The local papers which you sent me, mother, 
have had much to say about him the last two 
months. He is always rising in his profession, get- 
ting a pension for some old soldier, winning a 
difficult case, saving a farmer from some great in- 
justice, making a matchless speech, and doing a 


HOME FROM COLLEGE 


39 


score of other things which would make stepping 
stones to a great biography some day. Is he really 
so wonderful?” 

“For a man of only twenty-eight he has had re- 
markable success. I take much pleasure and pride 
in his career, for he and Elwood were like twins. I 
think that if the district had not settled upon your 
father for Congress, John would be asked to carry 
the banner.” 

“And so you think it settled that papa is to be 
nominated for Congress?” 

“It seems so. Wouldn’t you like to go to Wash- 
ington?” 

“Why, yes, it does seem, in the ordinary view 
of matters, that it would be perfectly lovely, as 
the girls say. But you see I want to take a post- 
graduate course in an eastern college, and then I 
want to spend another year in Europe, that is if 
papa’s money and good-nature hold out. He is a 
good papa, but he will soon be thinking I ought 
to do something else beside tug at his purse 
strings.” 

“Oh, well, you will have time for a good deal 
before going to Washington, because after a man 
is elected to Congress it is an age before he takes 
his seat.” 

JOHN CLINGMAN CALLS TO CONGRATULATE HELEN. 

In the evening as the sun was sinking into its 


40 COLONEL HUNGERFORD’s DAUGHTER 

green bed of the distant western fields, the chestnut- 
sorrels were reined up at the hitching post at Colo- 
nel Hungerford’s front gate, and John Clingman 
came briskly up the walk. He was a handsome 
young man. Nobody failed to make this remark 
about him. Nearly six feet tall, with a soldier’s 
erectness, and the color of health and the impress 
of intellectuality in his fine face, and an air of 
strength and mastery he easily took his place 
in the world as one to be observed and recognized 
by men and admired by women. Mrs. Hunger- 
ford met him at the door and conducted him to the 
parlor, furnished for the comfort of a country home, 
rather than the demands of fashion, with an abun- 
dance of easy chairs in its ample spaces, and great 
vases of freshly cut roses on mantel and table. 

When Helen entered, she greeted the young 
lawyer with the cordiality of an old neighbor, 
rather than as a man who had put between the 
present and the past that indefinable but real dis- 
tance which separates success from the play of 
childhood and the dreams of youth. She had so 
often taken him by the hand, when a little girl, and 
walked between him and Elwood as they sauntered 
through the orchard in search of the first ripe 
peaches, that she could not straightway dismiss all 
the old-time familiarity, and view him as a new 
and unknown factor to be reckoned with in the 
problem of life. 


MOME J^ROM ddLLEC^E 


4i 

The sorrels grew restless before their master 
appeared. They were not used to waiting so long. 
Mrs. Hungerford’s “come again” was animated, 
and Helen cordially joined in the invitation. 

After her mother had withdrawn, Helen sat by 
the window wrapped in meditation. The scenes 
of childhood returned, and a long procession of 
events and of schoolmates and neighbors passed 
before her. She saw the little schoolhouse on the 
hill, the boys leaping out of the door when the 
teacher said, “ Dismissed,” the troop of girls throw- 
ing their sunbonnets back upon their shoulders to 
let the breezes from the green fields kiss their 
cheeks; Lindell Norwin looking shy, but planning 
to meet her at the foot-log over the stream when 
the water in the little brook was high, and his 
hesitating way when he gave her bunches of wild 
flowers. She heard again the drum and fife when 
the regiment gathered on the square at Millers- 
burg, and her father galloped along the line, and 
wives, mothers and sweethearts sobbed and wrung 
their hands as the men were hurried into a long 
train of box cars; and, like a day that can never 
die, she remembered that afternoon when Elwood 
slipped out of the house, and she followed him un- 
til she saw him join Jack down the road, and then 
they went over the hill and she never saw him 
'again until a metallic coffin was brought into the 


42 COLONEL HUNGERFORD’s DAUGHTER 

house one day> and all the people from far and near 
came and filled the house and yard, and then fol- 
lowed the young soldier to the grave. The one 
was taken, the other left. And now here was Jack ; 
w'hy did Elwood fall, and he live? she asked. 
Who could tell, but the voice that speaks for eter- 
nity? The apple-trees are full of blossoms, but 
how many of them are only the banners of spring, 
never the red-ripe fruit of autumn! Elwood threw 
out the banner of life’s splendid hope, and then 
dropped into the dust. 

“But I know now,” she said, “why he was so 
fond of Jack. He was born to draw his compan- 
ions to him, and to lead them. I feel as though I 
had met a man to-night. His grace is the grace 
of strength. The tiger is graceful because it is 
strong, and so is this man. They say he is elo- 
quent; and eloquence too is strength, power of 
thought, vigor of imagination, mastery of words, 
generalship which marshals figures and phrases 
and hurls them against the line of opposing ideas, 
or leads them up to the triumphs of persuasion. 
‘Like the voice of many waters,’ we say; and 
many waters are might3\ So is the spirit of the 
man or woman that moves the world with elo- 
quence. 

“He is a man worth meeting for what he can 
bring to you, and for the interpretation which he 


HOME FROM COLLEGE 


43 


can put into your own thoughts. His ready recog- 
nition of your deeper meaning helps you to unfold it 
and give words to it. But so penetrating a mind 
is not alwa3^s comfortable company. For words 
are made to conceal as well as reveal thought, and 
to leave nothing unrevealed in conversation is to 
rob your personality of the charms of m^^stery. 
‘To the unknown gods,’ said the Athenians. When 
there is nothing unknown the awe is gone, and 
worship loses the power of its deepest spell. It is 
not well to have a man see too deep down in ^^our 
mind. 

“But I wish we could analyze men as we an- 
alyze flowers and stones. You can pick the petals 
off a flower and assign it to its exact class, or put 
acid on a stone and know whether there is carbon- 
ate of lime in it or not. How convenient it would 
be if we could tell what men and women are by 
dropping acid on them I 

“This man’s intellectual qualities are as clear as 
the trees which stand up in the sunlight of the pas- 
ture fields, but his moral nature does not so readily 
reveal itself, and yet it may be as rugged and sub- 
lime as the mountain heights over which the blue 
haze lingers and leaves us wondering and dream- 
ing.” 

Helen’s meditation did not much miss the mark. 
John Clingman was a strong man. Nature made 


COLONEL HUNGERFORD’s DAUGHTER 


him a favorite and lavished her gifts upon his body 
and mind. A college course might have done 
something for him, but he was not dependent upon 
the advantages of a college or wealth or name. 

The open gates of time, a world and its people, 
were enough for him. Of fine sensibilities, every- 
thing above and below, in field and woods, in hu- 
man faces and human speech, in smiles and tears, 
shouts of victory and cries of pain, taught him. 
His ear caught the music of rustling leaves, sigh- 
ing winds, murmuring streams, and his voice gave 
it back again in tones that thrilled his hearers. 
In the open sunlight, which makes hills and hedges 
stand out in clear form, he learned that lesson of 
simplicity of thought which put him in closest 
touch with the minds of common people. 

His penetrating power of mind and ability to 
read character had much to do with his great suc- 
cess in addressing a jurj’. He saw the strength 
of principle or stubbornness of prejudice in a juror’s 
mind, and devoted his arguments to the work of 
building up or tearing down the mental array, as 
the case required. 

The world, as the world goes, found no fault 
with his habits. Even the reformers had a good 
word for him. He neither smoked nor drank, and 
was not fond of clubs. He was often seen at 
church, and was a favorite when he appeared in 


HOME FROxM COLLEGE 


45 


society. Ambitious dames sometimes complained 
that he neither accepted invitations nor sent re- 
grets. But he apologized so graciously and ear- 
nestly when reminded of it, and made himself so 
agreeable the next time, that he never lost friends. 
Besides, it was well known that he often got lost 
among his books, and that he counted the minutes. 
They summed up their opinion of him by saying 
that he was the most brilliant young man that the 
“Soldiers’ Belt” had ever “raised,” and that he 
wore 'like steel. And having made up their minds 
to regard him as an extraordinary honor to their 
section, the people dismissed all evidence of his 
failings. 

But as John Clingman drove slowly home that 
night, past the farm-houses where the lights were 
out, and along the smoothly trimmed hedges over 
which he^'could see the long, straight rows of young 
corn in the moonlight, he was thinking to himself 
what a beautiful pair of eyes had met his occasional 
glance, and that they went far deeper than the eyes 
which looked at him when he arose to address the 
multitude. In a word, he was thinking Helen’s 
own thoughts about himself, that he had been with 
one who could hear more than words, and see 
more than looks or smiles or sunlight or shadow of 
countenance. 

It was not his opinion that she was in any need 


46 COLONEL HUNGERFORd’s DAUGHTER 

of a chemical process to detect character or the 
quality of mind. 

“If there is any unexplored part of me,” he 
said, “ which I don’t want discovered. I’d better put 
it under lock and key before I go there again. 
But then it is the trait of a noble woman to see the 
good rather than the evil, and it may be that she 
will discover some vein of gold down in the fissures 
of porphyry which I have not known myself. It 
is a part of a woman’s work in making men better 
to reveal to them their nobler selves. At all events, 
with woman’s fine charity, it is better for a man to 
find himself out through her intuition than to wait 
until the curtain goes up before the multitude. 
And, anyhow, I shall call on her again, because 
she is immensely interesting.” 

CUPID POISES IN THE AIR. 

A month later John Clingman’s office boy began 
to be surprised at the many reasons which he 
found for going to the old home. 

“He went out to his father’s this afternoon,” 
was the reply which he gave to man after man who 
came into the office to see him. 

Finally an old acquaintance, who had a big law 
case in his hands, blurted out, “What is he doing 
at the farm this summer? Plowing corn, mak- 
ing ha}^, or what?” 


HOME FROM COLLEGE 4^ 

‘‘Making hay, I guess,’’ said the boy wih a tit- 
ter. 

His sisters said: “We’re glad that you come out 
so often now. Jack. You are a good brother to be 
so fond of us all, and not let business drown 3rour 
love of home. But we have not forgotten that you 
used to say that you were waiting for Helen Hun- 
gerford to get through college.” 

“Oh, nonsense!” said Jack. “I like to talk with 
Miss Hungerford because she is up to date. I call 
upon her one evening for the same reason that I 
spend the next in my library. She is up on sci- 
ence, philosophy, literature, poetry, everything. 
And it is easier and much more pleasant to lean 
back in an easy chair by an open window where 
the breezes come across a yard full of roses, and 
look into the face of a brilliant graduate while she 
talks philosophy and science to you, than it is to 
shut yourself up in a hot room, with the dust of 
the street coming in at the window, and hunt up 
the same information through the long and weari- 
some chapters of books. 

“The books sometimes make me sleepy. Helen 
does not. I find myself a clear gainer. I’m sev- 
eral volumes ahead already. I’ll soon have a great 
stock of new and well assorted ideas for speeches 
at Granger picnics, and all sorts of meetings. And 
I have taken in enough of the pathos of poetry to 
melt a dozen more juries into tears.” 


COLONEL HUNGERFORd’s DAUGHTER 


‘‘But how handy it would be, Jack,” said the 
3’ounger sister, as she tossed her long curls back 
over her shoulder, “to have such a young woman 
for a wife! You would not need to go into your 
library at all, but could just sit down in a rocking 
chair and look into those wonderful brown eyes 
while she talked you full of speeches.” 

“Ahem — but then I should have the dress- 
makers’ and the millinery bills to pay, and there 
would have to be a big house, and summer trips 
and what not? With such a home as this I do not 
need another, and three sisters cannot afford to 
lose their only brother to get another sister.” 

“But, Jack, don’t you see that you have already 
given her your head, and how long will it be until 
she has your heart? Girls play for hearts, not 
heads.” 

“High, low. Jack, and the game,” shouted Mil- 
dred, the oldest sister. 

Jack laughed with the rest. “But Miss Hun- 
gerford does not play,” he said. “She is a little 
bit pious. But anyhow, she does not play for a 
man’s heart. If she has ever thought about the 
‘two-celled heart that beats with one full stroke,’ 
she gives no signs of it. 

“She is the most inscrutable person that I ever 
met. I have never seen a man on a jury whose 
thoughts I could not read as I talked on, but if I 


HOME FROM COLLEGE 49 

talked with Miss Hungerford a month, I should not 
know what I most wanted to know.” 

“Just so, Jack. What you most want to know. 
Take care, take care. Cupid is poising in the air. 
He loves a shining mark.” 

“Oh, no, you mean death loves a shining mark. 
Good-bye; I shall not be out again this week.” 

Nevertheless he did come. He said that press- 
ing business brought him out to see his father, and 
the two were closeted together in the library for 
an hour. 

When the neighbors saw the chestnut-sorrels so 
often at Colonel Hungerford’s gate, the men asked 
whether it meant politics, the young people laughed 
and looked wdse, and the mothers, without mar- 
riageable daughters, said, “What a splendid match 
it would makel They would be a brilliant couple.” 


CHAPTER IV. 


STARLIGHT OBSERVATIONS ON GIRL GRADUATES 
AND LOVE, 

Sammy Suddendrop sat in the starlight on a 
bench which stood near the well by the back gate. 

‘‘What are you doing out here, Sammy?” said 
a soft voice. “Are you star-gazing?” 

“No, Helen, I am just trying to keep up con- 
nections with old notions. We’ve had such a lot 
of philosophy around the house lately, and I have 
heard so much about mental phenomena — is that 
what you call it? — and the subjective and objec- 
tive, that I don’t always know where I am at. I 
come out here and listen to the dogs bark, the owls 
hoot and the crickets chirrup, because it makes 
me feel that the world is still doing business at the 
old stand ; at least, that it is not all in your mind, 
as the big men say, or all in your eye, as it seems 
when the dust blows in the corn field.” 

“You are not poking fun at me, are you, Sam- 
my?” 

“Oh, no, you girl graduates are all right. You 
have 3^our sheepskins tied up in blue ribbons, and 
50 


STARLIGHT OBSERVATIONS 5 1 

all feel as proud as a horse that has taken the first 
premiun at a county fair. You all know how to run 
the parlor end of a house, but some day, when you 
get married, you will find out that men don’t care 
half so much for high thinking as for high living. 
I tell you, there is lots of stomach in a man, and 
if the dinner isn’t cooked right, it’s no use to tell 
him what some big philosopher thinks. If I was 
a girl graduate and wanted to take a post-gradu- 
ate course, it would be in the kitchen.” 

“But what would you do if you were a boy grad- 
uate?” 

“I have never leveled my mind at that question. 
But I have been thinking that I ought to have 
taken up your mother’s offer to send me through 
college. I didn’t want to do it because I thought 
then that college boys had to study, but now that 
the girls do the studying and the boys do athletics, 
I most wish I had tried it. 

“Wouldn’t I have been a buster in a college 
yell? or a kicker in a foot-ball team? And when 
it comes to scrapping between freshmen and soph- 
omores, I could have done as big a day’s work as 
any of them. When I read in the papers how col- 
lege boys maul one another, it makes me want to 
run right off, and take off my coat, roll up my 
sleeves and begin — the study of Latin.” 

“You missed your opportunity, didn’t you, 
Sammy ?” 


52 


COLONEL HUNGERFORd’s DAUGHTER 


“Perhaps, But who was it that came this even- 
ing?” 

“Cousin Gladys.” 

“And no gentleman called?” 

“No, Sammy; were you expecting one?” 

Sammy laughed and said, “I don’t suppose that 
it is anything to you, Helen, but at the Culverwell 
party the other night the boys and girls were all 
saying that John Clingman has fallen in love.” 

“That would not be strange; such things have 
often happened before in the world, and with so 
many pretty girls in the country might easily hap- 
pen again. But what is love, Sammy?” 

“Love? Love? Why, love’s like the measles. 
When I got the measles so bad, I didn’t go around 
the house asking, ‘What is the measles? What is 
the measles?’ but I went to bed, asked your mother 
to send for the doctor, and then lay and watched 
the door for him to come. 

“If ever you get in love, Helen, you’ll not ask, 
‘What is love?’ but you’ll hang around the front 
window watching for the young man to come.” 

“Your experience seems to have gone further 
than the measles, Sammy. But I want you to do 
me a favor. I am going home with cousin Gladj^s 
in the morning, and I want you to drive over for 
me in the evening. Will you come?” 

“Certainly, Providence and the colonel per- 
mitting.” 


STARLIGHT OBSERVATIONS 53 

“Good-night.” 

“Bye, bye.” 

“ Do her a favor? What wouldn’t I do for Helen 
Hungerford?” said Sammy to himself. “I like to 
tease her because that is a boy’s nature. This is 
a great house when she is at home. I wish I knew 
as much as she does! But if I did, I know my 
head would feel as an anaconda must when he has 
swallowed an ox; only that the anaconda is satis- 
fied, but the more a man knows, they say, the more 
he wants to know.” 

LIGHTS AND SHADOWS. 

“I am afraid that it will rain before you get back 
to-night,” said Mrs. Hungerford, as Helen and 
her cousin Gladys stepped into the latter’s phaeton. 
“Sammy will come for you, but if it storms don’t 
try to return this evening.” 

The road led past the home of Captain Cling- 
man, and as they approached the house Miss Mil- 
dred Clingman, who was a few months older than 
Helen, and the oldest of Jack’s three sisters, was 
preparing to mount a beautiful dapple-gray horse 
which stood at the front gate, for a morning can- 
ter. When she saw Helen, she called to her sisters 
and they all gathered around the phaeton as it 
stopped, drew Helen out and kissed her, and then 
stood looking at her with eager admiration. 


54 COLONEL HUNGERFORD^S DAUGHTER 

“Why don’t you come to see me more often?” 
asked Helen. 

“Oh, another member of the family has monop- 
olized all the calls at your house,” said Daisy, 
laughing. 

Helen’s cheek colored a little, and the girls 
were much amused at her confusion. But she 
rallied and said, “This is a political year, and the 
gentlemen of our two houses seem much interested 
in such matters. But why don’t you come along? 
Being farmer’s daughters, you are opposed to mo- 
nopolies, are you not? Perhaps you can break up 
this one of which you complain.” 

“We have already delivered several speeches 
on the subject out here under the shade trees to a 
big audience of one man, but I fear we are not good 
talkers,” said Mildred. 

“One little word from you, Helen,” said Daisy, 
“would smash up the monopoly.” 

After the laughter, in which Helen heartily 
joined, while the color again mounted to her 
cheeks, she replied: 

“Indeed, if it is oppressing the community, 
making times hard and money scarce, I shall speak 
the word. It shall not be said against Colonel 
Hungerford that his own daughter favored a mo- 
nopoly. But we must drive on.” 

The girls kissed her again, said good-bye to her 


STARLIGHT OBSERVATIONS 

cousin, and with waving handkerchiefs sent them 
on their way. 

“What sweet girls they are!’’ said Gladys. 
“They would be charming sisters-in-law, wouldn’t 
they, Helen?” 

“Don’t say that, cousin Gladys,” replied Helen, 
while a look came into her face which meant that 
the subject was closed. 

A half-mile further out the road, as they rounded 
a little grove behind which the creek ran with its 
valley of pasture land, from which floated the mu- 
sic of cow bells, they passed a pretty cottage par- 
tially hid by the trees. It stood near the road, 
but the little yard was filled with flower-beds 
which always attracted the eyes of the passers-by. 
On the portico sat a white-haired woman, who 
seemed to be prematurely gray. She had no work 
in her hands, but did not look up or appear to no- 
tice the handsome young faces which fora moment 
were turned toward her. If she had, she could 
have seen a pitying, loving look which might have 
put a moment of consolation into her sad heart, as 
morning puts a drop of dew upon a withering 
blade of grass. 

This cottage was once the home, and this sor- 
rowing woman was the mother, of Nellie Millbrook ; 
and in other days Nellie was one of the prettiest 
and merriest of the group of girls who romped un- 


56 COLONEL HUNGERFORd’s DAUGHTER 

der the box-elders of the Morning Side school- 
yard, or on winter evenings came to spelling and 
singing schools with rosy cheeks which looked the 
more beautiful as they shone out through white 
hoods. But since her disappearance some years 
before, her name was mentioned only with mysteri- 
ous seriousness, and her history was a subject over 
which neighboring parents dropped the curtain 
when talking with their children. 

“Brooding, brooding,” said Helen as they 
passed on. “Oh, the sorrow of itl If a child dies 
and is laid awa}^ in the grave, the mother can come 
and look upon the little grass-covered mound and 
say, ‘Mother earth has taken the body to her own 
great bosom, and the spirit is in the spirit world, 
where it may never hear anything harsher than the 
whir of an angel’s wing.’ But when the child is 
nursed and loved to budding womanhood, and then 
slips over the brink into the polluted stream of evil, 
and is borne down in the darkness, how can a 
mother bear it? 

“Those white hairs tell of an awful sorrow, of a 
cruel memory that smites with a perpetual stroke. 
How well I remember when Nellie used to take 
me in her lap and put roses in my hair I She 
loved me. But now all is lost.” 

Helen’s last words came with a sob, and her 
face was glistening with tears. 


STARLIGHT OBSERVATIONS 57 

Gladys broke the silence which followed by 
saying, “It is reported that Nellie was seen in the 
neighborhood a few days ago.” 

A STRANGE MEETING IN A STORM. 

In the evening Sammy Suddendrop came for 
Helen, and in spite of the threatening storm she 
insisted on returning home. 

“We shall take the old road and go in by the 
back gate of the farm,” she said. “It will save a 
mile, and I think we shall reach home before the 
storm begins.” 

But the storm gathered fast; the clouds swept 
down upon the earth in heavy masses and the 
darkness deepened. The road was an obscure 
one, not much used, and Sammy could do but lit- 
tle more than hold hard upon the reins of the spir- 
ited horses, and trust to their sagacity to keep the 
way. With each flash of lightning they glanced 
ahead to look for any chance vehicle which might 
be coming that way. 

“There is a carriage and a bridge,” cried Hel- 
en, catching at the reins to help check the horses. 
Then followed darkness which might have been 
felt. But with another flash of lightning they saw 
that the carriage was but a few feet away, and 
that in a moment more they would both be upon 
the little bridge, which was too narrow to permit 
them to pass each other. 


58 COLONEL HUNGERFORD’s DAUGHTER 

‘‘Hold the lines,” said Sam m3’’, and springing 
out, he took the horses the bits, backed them 
carefully near the edge of the bank, and then 
shouted to the other driver to come on. The driver 
approached slowly,and, when alongside of Helen’s 
carriage, paused fora moment to make sure of the 
space between the wheels and the opposite edge 
of the bank, A thunderbolt struck into a neigh- 
boring tree with a deafening crash, and in the 
glaring light Helen saw a man and woman seated 
behind the driver. Their frightened faces were 
turned full upon her, and as their eyes met, the 
woman uttered a low cry; the man shouted with 
an oath to the driver to go on, and he struck the 
horses and dashed awa3’in the darkness. 

Helen dropped the reins in her agitation, but 
Sammy led the horses across the bridge, and then 
resumed his seat. 

“Did you see that woman?” asked Helen in a 
frightened tone, but with passionate earnestness. 

“Yes.” 

“Was she Nellie Millbrook?” 

“Yes.” 

“But who was the man?” 

“Get up,” shouted Sammy to the horses. 

“Don’t talk, Helen; I’ve got all I can do driv- 
ing over this old road in such an awful storm. 
The next time it’s working up a storm in the west 


STARLIGHT OBSERVATIONS 


S9 


we’ll take the big road, or hang out at your Uncle 
Ben’s for the night. That last thunder-clap w'as 
too much like the judgment day fo; me.” 

As they turned down a hill in the woods Sam- 
my said: 

‘‘Are you afraid of ghosts, Helen?” 

“No; why do you ask?” 

“Because they say ghosts like to frisk around in 
storms, and we are coming now to the old oak tree 
where the man was murdered.” 

The mystery of the murder at the oak tree was 
one which had grown old in the Soldiers’ Belt. 
More than a quarter of a century before, a gentle- 
man came to Millersburg, a stranger, who said 
that he was an agent for some land -owners, and 
was looking up their lands and examining their 
titles. A couple of days after his arrival he hired 
a horse and rode into the country some distance 
to see a farmer. It was dusk when he left the 
farmer’s house to return to Millersburg. He was 
never seen alive again. The horse came back to 
the stable at midnight, and the next morning the 
stranger’s body was found near the foot of the oak 
tree. It had been pierced by a bullet, and was 
stripped of all valuables and of everything that 
would have served to identify him. The conclu- 
sion was at once reached that a robber had hid be- 
hind the oak until his unsuspecting victim passed 


6o COLONEL HUNGERFORd’s DAUGHTEtt 

and then had shot and robbed him. But a few years 
later some boys, while fishing in the creek near 
by, drew out a gold watch and chain, which were 
identified as having belonged to the stranger. 

This discovery threw doubt over the theory that 
he had been murdered for the purpose of robbery. 
But who the assassin was, continued to be a pro- 
found mystery. 

After Helen and Sammy reached home, and the 
former had told about the strange meeting at the 
little bridge. Colonel Hungerford took Sammy to 
one side and asked him who the man was. 

“The man that we’ve been trailing,-’ was the 
reply. 

“Where do you think they were going?” 

“I don’t know, but the old road leads to Coal- 
ville Station.” 

“And the train for the East passes there at ten 
o’clock ?” 

“Yes.” 

“They were going to take it?” 

“Quite likel}^ they must have wanted to do 
something pretty bad, or they would not have been 
out in such a storm as this. There are not many 
such volunteer fools as I have been to-night. Helen 
thought the storm was grand, but when the forked 
lightning is sizzling your eyebrows and making 
your hair stand on end, I don’t see anything grand 
about it. I’m not pitched so high as that.” 




STARLIGHT OBSERVATIONS 


6l 


. ■ 

C; ^ 



On the afternoon of that same day Captain 
Clingman drew a thousand dollars from the Farm- 
er’s Bank at Millersburg. 







;• 




■r 







CHAPTER V. 


WHAT THE FAMILY THOUGHT OF THE SERMON. 

It was Sunday, and Colonel Hungerford’s fam- 
ily, according to their usual custom, had attended 
church at Millersburg ; and, as the custom of 
Christendom is, were discussing the sermon and 
the preacher. For next to a candidate for the pres- 
idency, the Protestant preacher is the most dis- 
cussed person in the countr}^. From the fading 
or unfading luster on the velvet collar of his over- 
coat to the blacked or unblacked toe of his shoe, 
he is an object of minute and thorough-going in- 
vestigation, and of particular, pungent and per- 
sistent remark. Whether he puts his hands in his 
pockets or the pockets of his parishioners; whether 
he parts his hair on the right or left side, in the 
middle or not at all, or nature parts it for him on 
a wholesale plan ; whether he wears a frock coat 
or a cutaway, a swallow-tail, or a new coat or old 
coat, a smile, a solemn look, a long face, a silk 
hat or a slouch hat; whether he flatters, his hear- 
ers or frightens them, flounders through his sermons 

or flies to eagle heights of eloquence, preaches 
62 


WHAT THE FAMILY THOUGHT OF THE SERMON 63 

from the Bible, Herbert Spencer or George Eliot, 
and directs his sermons to his congregation or the 
newspapers; he is a man to be talked about, talked 
up and talked down, talked into a pulpit and out 
of it, according to the varying moods of that part 
of the public which seeks to be entertained in sa- 
cred places, and of the man who manages the 
finances of the church, and measures the minister 
by the money there is in him, and of the good 
sisters who lead the gossip at sewing meetings. To 
add to the interest on this occasion, the preacher of 
the day was a candidate. For the Millersburg pul- 
pit was vacant, and the church had been having 
a long procession of candidates. As the salary 
was $2,500 a year. Providence was readily inter- 
preted by a host of men as pointing in that di- 
rection. They came thick and fast, from the 
gray-haired man who had lived long enough to be 
humble in the presence of the problems of eter- 
nity, to the young graduate who jostled Moses out 
of place and pulled the Psalms down the ages as 
freely as children knock down block houses. 

“ He is a brilliant preacher,” said Mrs. Hun- 
gerford. “That certainly was a beautiful picture 
which he drew of worship in the woods and fields, 
by streams and hedges, where the trees talk of 
God, and birds and brooks sing praises. But I 
did not like the idea. It seems to me that the 


64 COLONEL HUNGERFORD’s DAUGHTER 

church is the best place for worship, that if a man 
does not like to go to the house of God, he will 
not go to the woods to worship, whatever else may 
take him there. What do you think, Helen?” 

“I should like to hear what Sammy thinks,” 
was the reply. “I like to know how a sermon 
strikes boys in these days. For they will soon be 
the men, and at the helm, or pillars in the church.” 

“I liked the sermon,” said Sammy, after some 
hesitation. ‘‘It’s a nice idea, that of going to the 
woods. When you slip down to the creek to fish 
a while on a Sunday afternoon, it’s a good thing 
to have a man as smart as that young preacher to 
make you believe it’s all right. And the music 
down there sounds better than it does in church. 
I would lots rather hear the birds warble than a 
choir wobble through a hard anthem; and you 
don’t have to put anything into the contribution 
box to pay the bill. When you get seated on a 
log and are waiting for the fish to bite, it’s com- 
forting to think that it’s just as pious as to be in a 
church pew listening to a man who is fishing for 
your soul; and if a red bird perches on a limb 
over your head and whistles like a heavenly cher- 
ub, it is better than a wailing solo from a soprano 
who has a cold. I should say this minister un- 
derstands a boy’s internal system, and I hope they 
will call him,” 


WHAT THEi FAMILY THOUCJhY OF YhF SERMON 65 

“I hope they won’t,” said the colonel, “for the 
boys would all soon be out of the church and the 
fish out of the creek.” 

“The kind of preaching which makes it easy for 
a boy to get around his conscience,” said Mrs. 
Hungerford, “makes it hard for him to get to 
heaven. You want to go to heaven, don’t you, 
Sammy ?” 

“Yes, ma’am, but not right away.” 

After laughing, Helen said, “You want to take 
the lightning express.” 

“Yes, and a Pullman sleeper.” 

“You will have to engage your berth early, then, 
for the sleepers on that road are all crowded these 
days.” 

“They do seem to oe. Deacon Posewell would 
have slept all through the sermon if a fly had not 
made it his business to roam around over his shiny 
head. When I see a fly on a bald head it makes 
me think of a man in search of the north pole — he 
is up at the extreme edge of civilization.” 

“You mean that a bald head represents the ex- 
treme of civilization?” 

“That is what John Clingman said the other 
day when he was talking to a bald-headed jury.” 

“Never mind about that, Sammy,” said the colo- 
nel. “But what did you think, Helen, about the 
mistakes of Moses?” 


66 COLONEL HUNGERFORD’s DAUGHTER 

“Pcfor Moses!” she replied. “It may have 
been a mistake for him to think that he ever lived 
at all. Certainly it was a mistake for him to be 
born before the present generation of critics came 
into the world. There is much that they could 
have told him. 

“He said that he was slow of speech, and he 
must have been very slow, for we are told now 
that it was several centuries after he was dead be- 
fore his last words were uttered.” 

“Moses has had the misfortune of always be- 
ing out of date,” said the colonel. “He is out of 
date now. Your smart men of affairs now wouldn’t 
write the Ten Commandments as Moses wrote 
them.” 

“How would they write them?” asked Mrs. 
Hungerford. 

“Oh, something after this fashion: 

“‘Thou shalt have no other gods but gold. 

“‘Thou shalt not bow down to anything but suc- 
cess. 

“‘Thou shalt remember the Sabbath day to keep 
all thy accounts, to go on a journey, and to give 
strict heed to all thy small affairs. 

“‘Thou shalt honor thy first parents, the baboon 
and the ape. 

“‘Thou shalt not be found out. 

“‘Thou shalt not be poor. 


WHAT THE FAMILY THOUGHT OP THE .SERMON 67 

“‘Thou shalt not steal, unless thou hast much 
money. 

“‘Thou shalt not be out of fashion. 

“‘Thou shalt not covet everything that is thy 
neighbor’s unless thou art in a trust.’” 

“But didn’t Christ abrogate the law.” 

“No, except as the little oak abrogates the shell 
of the acorn out of which it springs.” 

“It is strange,” said Helen, “that so many think 
the law set aside, when Christ said that it was more 
eternal than the stars; and strange too that they 
think it so exacting when there is nothing so ex- 
acting as the law of love. Love commands us to 
do things that no other law does — to leap into the 
water to save the drowning, to rush into a burning 
building to rescue the inmates, to watch with the 
sick through nights of weariness and pain, to die 
for country, and go to the ends of the earth for 
savages and cannibals. 

“It is said, ‘Preach love, not law,’ and it is 
right. But no sword cuts like the genuine preach- 
ing of love. I should rather hear the thunder-tones 
of Sinai all day, than to have love whisper its great 
claims into my ear for a moment.” 


CHAPTER VI. 


LINDELL NORWIN AND HIS MOTHER EXCHANGE 
OPINIONS ABOUT WOMAN. 

On an afternoon of the same vveekLinclell Nor- 
win entered his apartments in New York, drew up 
the window shades and began to look over the let- 
ters which had accumulated upon his table. He 
was just back from Europe, where he had spent 
several months in literary work, and for this rea- 
son had not received Colonel Hungerford’s letter 
regarding the claims against his land. When he 
had read the letter he said, “I must attend to this 
matter at once.” 

Another letter was from his mother. It was as 
follows: 

“My Dear Lindell: 

“I want this letter to greet you when 3’ou first 
set foot on your native shore. In my thoughts I 
have followed you night and da}^ across the sea, 
praying against wind and storm, and spiriting you 
homeward on the wings of a mother’s faith and 
love. The ocean never seemed so wide as when 
it rolled between my onl}’ boy and his mother, 
and the little fleecy clouds which floated across the 
field never before meant so much, for I thought 
68 


OPINIONS ABOUT WOMAN 69 

that thej^ might turn to storms and strike across 
your path. 

“We shall want you to come home at once and 
let us see you, and you will excuse a mother’s 
pride, if I say I want you to be seen. Now that 
you are succeeding so well, it will mean something 
for us all. Boys back from the big battle in the 
great world make happy mothers. Miss Hunger- 
ford has been home from college for several weeks. 
It may be that I am over-proud of her because she 
is home-grown, one of our own girls; but my ad- 
miration for her is great. I think you would in- 
terest her greatly now that you have seen so much 
of the world, and are acquiring a literary reputation. 
She has, however, one very devoted admirer. I 
have always feared that your path and his would 
cross some day. Why, I know not, except as future 
events flash their intimations into our minds long 
beforehand. But do, dear boy, come home soon, 
and let your father and mother get a little good 
of 3^ou. Your loving Mother.” 

“I ought to go a thousand miles to make even 
one happy day for such a mother,” he said. “For 
I never should have got away to college had it not 
been for her. I shall write her at once.” 

And so he wrote: 

“I shall come as soon as possible, dear mother, 
but to see you, not the little girl who is now so 
charming in your sight. I have seen womanhood 
in the great cities of the world, and you must not 
think that I am now looking at Helen through the 
same eyes that I once shaded with a palm leaf hat 
while I hunted wild flowers for her in the mead- 


70 COLONEL HUNGERFORD’s DAUGHTER 

ows. The world soon rubs off school-day attach- 
ments. Seeing so many handsome faces makes 
one little face that hid timidly away in the depths 
of a sunbonnet seem a very small factor in life. 

“I suppose that for a young woman a particular 
young man may often be necessary to happiness. 
If she misses him she misses her main chance. 
But with a young man it is not so. He can go on 
to wealth, political power, or literary success, even 
if he does miss a Helen or Mildred and finally falls 
back on a Susie or Daisy. 

“ Besides, woman seems to be approaching a new 
era, and I do not know just what she is going to 
be, whether a public leader with a big name and a 
little husband following after her, a kind of Atlas 
carrying the world on her shoulders, or a creature 
of fashion with a poodle under her arm. But I do 
know that if she is to have all the importance, I 
do not want to be the little man who will get lost 
in her shadow. A man who wants to set all the 
world to rights is uncomfortable company, but to 
have a woman for a wife who thought it as easy 
to reform all creation as to do a washing, would 
be an everj’-da}^ in-door and out-door affliction 
which my constitution, tough as it is, would not 
bear.” 

When Lindell finished this letter, he went to a 
drawer and took out a little album and looked at 
a photograph which his mother had begged from 
Mrs. Hungerford, but lost and could never find. 
Before he put it away again he was sensible that 
his new bravado had not yet put out all the old fire 
that burnt in his breast when a boy. 


OPINIONS ABOUT WOMAN 7 1 

In a few days he received a reply from his 
mother, in which she said: 

“ Y our father laughs at your professed alarm over 
the coming of the new woman. He thinks there 
will always be enough of the old woman to poke 
a fire on top, praise the preachers, run after new 
fads and keep open the channels of information in 
the neighborhood. 

“New woman or old w'oman, her question of state 
will always be, how-withal shall we be clothed? 

“But your father is cynical, and for my part I 
think that there is a womanhood which is always 
new, because it is beautiful and true. This has 
been a woman’s century, and if she wants to make 
its last years the greatest, why object? 

“But don’t think, my dear boy, that it makes 
little difference whether it is a Helen or Susie, or 
Polly or Peggy. A bad choice of a wife could 
bring you more misery than a big success in liter- 
ature will bring you happiness. 

“There is a tone about this kind of talk which' 
shows that while the world is developing some of 
your faculties, it may be putting a crust over other 
faculties whose growth is equally essential to a 
noble manhood.” 

TROUBLESOME TITLES. 

Two weeks later Lindell wrote to Co:onel Hun- 
gerford explaining his long delay in regard to his 
request concerning the Jones signature to his title. 
He said that since his return he had given it 
much personal attention, that he had found the 
executor of the Jones will, and they went through 


72 COLONEL HUNGERFORD’s DAUGHTER 

his papers and records and discovered that the 
wife of Jones died a month before he sold the 
property and made the deed, and that he did not 
marry again. Why there was a wife’s signature 
in the transfer of Captain Clingman’s section he 
did not know, unless because there were so many 
Joneses in New York that two of them might have 
had the same given name, and both have owned 
land in the West. 

He had also discovered that there were some 
Jones heirs who believed that they were entitled 
to some property near Millersburg, but as his own 
title was all right he did not follow up the other 
matter. 

Colonel Hungerford felt much relieved by this 
letter, but after explaining its contents to his wife, 
lapsed into a long silence. 

“What is it, my dear?” she said at length. 

“I don’t know. I don’t understand it all. Our 
title seems all right, but there seems to be some- 
thing wrong somewhere. There are straws here 
and there which point to something, but what I 
can’t tell. 

“And I don’t understand why the man left so 
suddenly. He has not been seen since the day of 
the storm. He said that he was going to enter suit 
at once, and had retained Judge Barrier as his 
counsel. But I have heard nothing more about it.” 


Ot»lNlONS ASOUt WOMAN (7^ 

‘‘I am glad,” said Mrs. Hungerford, “that we 
can breathe freely again about this home place. I 
felt the more uneasy because of what happened 
when I was a girl. Before we came west we had 
two neighbors who dealt in western lands. They 
soon became rich, built new houses, drove fine 
horses, and lived in great style. The men were 
gone much of the time, but always spent the sum- 
mer months with their families. 

“One day, as one of them drove up to the post- 
office in a stylish turnout, a sunburnt, rough-look- 
ing man stepped up to him and placed him under 
arrest. He was a western sheriff and produced a 
warrant charging our neighbor with forging deeds 
to vacant lands in his state. As it transpired after- 
wards, these two men had for several years been 
engaged in looking up lands whose owners lived 
in other states, forging deeds to them and then 
selling them at a low price. It was believed that 
they had accomplices in all the counties where 
they operated, either among the officials or land 
sharks. But they had covered up their tracks so 
well that conviction was difficult, and only this 
one man was sent to the penitentiar}". The other 
neighbor was captured in the West while disposing 
of a piece of stolen land, but afterwards escaped 
from jail, and was never heard of again. There 
was a rumor, however,that his pursuers could have 


74 COLONEL MUNGERFORD^S DAUGHTEli 

told where he was, that a western court, extem- 
porized in the woods, had disposed of his case after 
a very short session. 

“After that there was always some suspicion in 
our family of western titles.” 

“Did you ever hear your father say in what 
counties these men operated ?” asked Colonel Hun- 
gerford. 

“No, I did not. I was young and did not inter- 
est myself in the details. I remember their hand- 
some carriages and spotted coach dog, which went 
by our house so often, better than I do the names 
of the western towns and places where their crimes 
were committed.” 

The colonel arose and walked the floor so long 
that his wdfe left him to his meditations, and re- 
tired. 


CHAPTER VII. 


HELEN CALLS A HALT. 

A WESTERN farm countr}^ is wanting in the pic- 
turesqueness of the East. Prairies resolutely flat, 
or rising and falling in broad undulations which 
sweep beyond the blue of the horizon, lack some- 
thing of the charm of hills which gather up the 
green of the foliage and unfurl it in the sk}^ or 
draw down white clouds and throw the fleecy 
drapery over their shoulders; and of snug little 
valleys which catch the sunlight like golden bowls 
and are full of laughing and loving flowers, while 
the waters of the brooks splash over the stones and 
fill the little court with music. 

But the West has its own beauty. When its 
boundless prairies are clothed with fields of corn, 
green, great and strong, and harvested grain, stand- 
ing in long rows of shocks, while pretty white 
houses peep through clumps of maples or tall pop- 
lars, and neatly trimmed hedges bound rich pas- 
ture fields, the scene presented is one of the great- 
ness and glory of earth’s spaces, richly dowered, 
covered with plenty, full of beauty for the eye and 
75 


76 COLONEL HUNGERFORD’s DAUGHTER 

blessings for the body, a vast intimation of wealth, 
of happy homes, of towns and cities, colleges, and 
a nation’s strength. It is a picture which not only 
salutes the eye of the artist, but which promises to 
feed and clothe the household, to send boys and 
girls to college, and to lay up comfort and plenty 
for old age. 

It was while Mrs. Hungerford and Helen were 
taking an afternoon drive along one of these hedge- 
bound highways, the blue sky arched high above, 
and the sunlight touching the whole land with a 
glow of splendor, that the latter said: 

“Mother, don’t you think that Mr. Clingman is 
calling pretty often and staying rather late?” 

The mother looked surprised, not because this 
question is usually put the other way between 
mother and daughter, but for other reasons. 

“Perhaps he is,” she replied, “ but you know that 
we have always been fond of him, and greatly ad- 
mire him.” 

“Yes, I know, mamma, and there is so much 
reason for it. For he is so very admirable, so 
quick, so brilliant, with such a constant flash of 
intelligence in his face and such a wealth of words 
to express his thoughts. I never met a man who 
understood so well as he the picturesque in phrase- 
ology. And at heart he seems to be good. But — ” 

“But what, my dear?” 


HELEN CALLS A HALT 77 

“Well, mamma, to be frank, and say it right 
out, I think it means marriage.” 

“So does womanhood, for that matter. It is an 
old story, Helen, But has Mr Clingman proposed ?” 

“No, mamma, but we know that day is coming 
before the sun walks over the high eastern hills; 
and love makes the sk}^ a little bit rosy before it 
proclaims itself openly.” 

“Well, when the birds see the rosy fingers of 
light reach up into the eastern sky, they salute 
them with their songs. Is there a bird singing in 
your heart?” 

Helen turned her head away and looked across 
the field at the drivers loading shocks of wheat for 
the threshing machine which was humming mer- 
rily at a neighboring barn. When she felt that the 
little flame had left her cheek, she looked into 
her mother’s handsome face and said: 

“I do not want to marry now, you and papa are 
so good, and I have all that I need in home and 
comfort. Besides, I have my theory about life, 
and it does not lead straight to orange blossoms and 
the altar.” 

“ But, my dear daughter, the Lord made man 
and woman before men and women made theories, 
and I have more faith in the old instincts than I 
do in the new theories. I should not like to see 
you accept or dismiss a man on a theory. But 


78 COLONEL HUNGERFORD’s DAUGHTER 

let your heart settle the case on his merits. The- 
ories are better for speculation than for practice. 
A woman’s headlight is her heart. Of course, she 
can’t see around all the curves with it, but if she 
keeps it well trimmed, she can see further than 
with any other light.” 

“A woman’s heart sometimes makes much 
trouble for her, mamma.” 

“I know all that. But a good authority has 
said, ‘Out of the heart are the issues of life.’ It 
is not the heart that causes the ruin generally, but 
the way in which it is kept, or rather not kept. 

“If girls leave their hearts on the front door- 
steps there is no telling what tramp will carry them 
off. But wise girls keep them under lock and 
key.” 

“Yes, but they fall in love, and then do all 
sorts of foolish things. Is love a good guide?” 

“God is love, and he makes no mistakes. It is 
not love that girls fall into when they make such 
sad mistakes and do such foolish things, but pas- 
sion, impatience, self-will, vanity and all the brood 
of hurtful things which nestle under pride. But 
what is your theory, Helen?” 

“I have been told so often, mamma, that I am 
handsome that I suppose I ought to believe it. I 
have been the object of much admiration and 
many flattering remarks, but am I to consider my 


HELEN CALLS A HALT 


19 


attractions and my success in college only so much 
advantage for making a good marriage? Is a wom- 
an beautiful, talented and cultured only to be mar- 
ried? I come home and straightway the most 
popular marriageable man in the region is my 
devoted admirer. But is all to go for just this one 
man? I enjoy his coming. The hours go as 
quickly for me, perhaps, as for him. I think we 
both hate to hear the clock strike. But I should 
like to have what I am, and have acquired, do 
something more than catch a husband. Why 
should not a woman think of her attractions as a 
means of making the world better instead of just 
bettering her own prospects? What draws this 
man towards me would draw the wretched and 
miserable, and give me power to inspire them and 
help them upward. You have quoted the Bible; 
let me quote Paul: ‘lam debtor to the Greeks 
and to the barbarians.’ I feel the same wa}’ — that 
I am debtor not to interesting people only, but to 
the barbarians who fill the world with their sins 
and sorrows. And I am debtor for all that I am 
in grace to influence and power to mold into a bet- 
ter image. 

“The Greeks wrought in marble, words and 
phrases. We,twenty centuries further up the scale 
of civilization, work on human souls. 

“In a word, mother, an educated, wealthy farm- 






8o 


COLONEL HUNGERFORD S DAUGHTER 


er’s only daughter ought to think herself cut out 
for much usefulness in the world. Rationalistic 
people, who are always ashamed of a Bible idea 
unless they can give it some other name, call this 
altruism, but it is the heart idea of Christianity. 
The good that you can do to others is j^our debt 
to others. If you are born beautiful your debt is 
greater than if plain. If you are educated you owe 
more than the ignorant. If you get rich you get 
into deeper debt. There was one man whom the 
Prince of gentleness called a fool. He was the man 
who increased his barns instead of his usefulness.” 

“Your theory is good, my darling, excellent, 
but there is a difference between a man’s influence 
and that of a woman. The basis of a man’s influ- 
ence is his success in his calling. The basis of a 
woman’s influence is her husband. Perhaps that 
is putting it a little strong, but we usually have to 
overstate principles to state them at all. 

“Let a woman marry a man of success and in- 
fluence, and her words and ways count in the 
community. What the wife of the Hon. Mr. So 
and So says, goes, even if she is commonplace 
and disjoints subjects and predicates. She is put 
on committees and at the head of movements.. Of 
course, if she is handsome and brilliant it helps, 
but the basis of it all is her husband’s position. I 
am not saying that it ought to be so, but that it is 


HELEN CALLS A HALT 


8l 


SO, and that if you want to be an influence for 
good in the world, a man of brilliant professional 
success will be a high tower to stand on.” 

“The word is,” said Helen laughingly, “that 
woman is a door-mat for a man, and here you are 
saying that the husband is standing ground for the 
wife.” 

“Yes, but there is a good deal of difference be- 
tween a tower and a door-mat.” 

“I understand, mamma; but suppose that I 
should want to do more good than my husband, 
but in a different way, then there would be a hitch 
and a drawback. One who would do good in 
this world must not be explaining to and reasoning 
with somebody in the rear all the time. There 
are enough of obstacles in front, without anybody 
to work the hold-back straps. My observation is 
that husbands are apt to put on the brakes when 
wives are pulling up hill, and the wives put them 
on when the husbands are running down-hill. I 
do not want to be held back, or have a husband to 
hold back.” 

“That is well enough, Helen, but remember 
that a yoke is not for slavery, but to draw burdens. 
Oxen without yokes would plow no fields, drag no 
harrows, haul no grists to mill. Say what you 
will about the yoke of matrimony, it has drawn 
the greatest burdens up the steepest hills ever trod- 


82 COLONEL HUNGERFORd’s DAUGHTER 

clen by human feet. However great or small we 
consider the progress of the race, it has been a 
man and wife progress. One good man yoked to 
one good woman is the strongest team on earth.” 

“You are a dear good mother, and papa is such 
a dear good man that I do not wonder that you 
think the yoke easy and the burden light, and 
with you in the afternoon and Mr. Clingman in 
the evening I begin to feel a little alarmed. But 
then—” 

“I am talking for general principles, not for the 
gentleman who calls so often. However, Helen, 
when you are deeply in love there will be no ‘but’. 
A woman’s heart is bigger than all the theories in 
the world.” 

“Suppose that this should prove a heart affair, 
mamma, I do not want to marry now. I have my 
heart set on another year of study; then I want to 
go abroad for a year. One needs to see as well 
as read about things. Travel is study on the wing, 
and all the faculties gather knowledge on the way.” 

“But, my daughter, marriage waits on such 
things. Engagements are elastic as to time, but 
not as to lo3'alty, and they have their own pleasant 
fancies. There is something in thinking while 
the rain is pattering on the roof and making the 
corn grow in the fields, or the wild fowls are ut- 
tering their cry on the way southward, or the 


HELEN CALLS A HALT 


83 


winter winds are whistling through the trees and 
moaning around the house, that your heart has its 
haven fixed, and that by and by the clock will 
strike the hour of the great event.’’ 


CHAPTER VIIL 


THE CONGRESSIONAL CONVENTION AT HAND, 

The Congressional Convention was only three 
weeks away, but the tide was no longer all in one 
direction. The opposition to Colonel Hungerford 
had become more open and determined. A part 
of the press had arrayed itself strongly against 
him, and as usual on such occasions, published a 
dozen more lies while the friends of the colonel 
were trying to stop the first. But the body of the 
voters were with him, and there was no fear of his 
defeat for the nomination, 

“We must do something,” said Captain Cling- 
man as he walked with young Culverwell over to 
his son’s law office. “It is now or never with 
Jack.” The latter was hastily putting away the 
papers in a case in which he had been absorbed 
since early morning. 

“Were you going out?” asked his father. 

“Yes, I’m tired and shall take a drive into the 
country. Are the girls at home?” 

“My girls are, but I don’t know about some 
other girls.” 


84 


THE CONGRESSIONAL CONVENTION AT HAND 85 

•‘What is yours is mine, and that is enough,^’ 

“But, Jack, I am tired too.” 

“Tired of what, father?” 

“Tired trying to heal this growing split in the 
party. It is making a bad prospect for us.” 

“Do you think it as bad as that?” 

“Yes, I do. This is an off year, which this time 
means off to the Democratic party. We must 
have a candidate who will poll the full vote of our 
party or we shall be beaten, and that Colonel 
Hungerford cannot do.” 

“Who can, then?” 

“You,” said both at once, with much emphasis. 

“I don’t know about that, but I do know that 
I shall not pit myself against Colonel Hungerford. 
While he is a candidate I shall not be. A man 
under thirty does not need to run an old friend, 
and a good man, off the track to get to Congress. 
He can afford to wait.” 

“But what if he should withdraw?” said Tom. 
“What if, realizing the bitterness of the split, and 
the danger of disaster to the party, he should con- 
clude to step aside for the sake of harmony?” 

“That would be another matter. He has always 
been a very loyal party man, but a man who fought 
through the war for peace is not just the kind to 
surrender or beat a retreat for peace. Anyhow, 

I don’t like this.” 


86 COLONEL HUNGERFORd’s DAUGHTER 

“Your attachment for the colonel is undouotedly 
very great,” said Tom with a wink, “but you 
would like to go to Congress, wouldn’t you?” 

“ Why, I suppose so. Most young lawyers want to 
be statesmen and make history ; and it is natural for 
them to want to tnake laws. They know better 
then where the loopholes are when they have to help 
you sinners out of bad scrapes, or rich corporations 
to get over the bars. A lawyer to make the law, 
a lawyer to outlaw the law ; a judge to see the tech- 
nicalities of the law, and not the law itself, what 
is to keep the big fellows, who can hire all the big 
lawyers, from getting decisions to suit them? Oh, 
yes, I should like to be a law-maker. But Colonel 
Hungerford is in command of the regiment this 
time, and I have hardly even been in the ranks.” 

“A camp follower, as it were,” said Tom, with 
another wink. 

“Anything, Tom, just so that it suits you, and 
you let me get away for some fresh air.” 

“But, Jack, this is serious business,” said his 
father. “You are the man who can unite the party ; 
everybody knows that. The farmers like you, 
and the townspeople like you. We want you to 
think it over carefully.” 

“I may, but don’t go away and say that I am in 
the hands of my friends, for that means that a man 
is humping himself with all his might to get a 
nomination. 


THE CONGRESSIONAL CONVENTION AT HAND 87 

‘‘Get in and ride with me, father, and let Tom 
drive the other team,” said the young lawyer as 
they went out. 

“No, Jack, I don’t like to ride after your sor- 
rels, they step too high, it makes me feel giddy. 
We old fellows like .a pair of horses that hang 
their heads in sober second thought, and jog 
along as if they were trying to postpone the inevita- 
ble. Our gray hairs tell us that we will be at the 
end of the journey soon enough anyhow. Tell 
your mother that I shall be along in good time.” 

“Captain,” said Tom, when Jack was gone, 
“you always fall into sentiment when you have a 
political scheme on hand.” 

“Sentiment is a power in politics as well as it is 
in everything else.” 

“If that is the case. Jack is feeling sentimental 
enough now to run the congressional race like a 
scared wolf. But what now?” 

“You must see Colonel Hungerford right away 
and try to get him to withdraw. Don’t say any- 
thing to him about a split in the party, but make 
a personal appeal on the ground of what no other 
man in the world did for him but you.” 

CULVERWELL RECALLS A CRITICAL MOMENT. 

The next afternoon Colonel Hungerford met 
Culverwell by appointment in a little side parlor 
of the Millersburg hotel. 


88 COLONEL HUNGERFORD^S DAUGHTER 

Culverwell began with the crops, then became 
reminiscent, talked over war experiences and 
went over the battle-ground of Gettysburg again, 
now pausing at Culp’s Hill, then at Little Round 
Top, and at the fatal Peach Orchard, and again 
going through the terrific cavalry charge. It was 
like smelling the smoke of battle, and riding into 
the jaws of death again. The colonel’s eyes 
flashed and his breast heaved with the pride of 
victory, as he again saw Pickett’s brave forty 
thousand beaten, broken and swept back over the 
wide plain. 

“It was a glorious battle,” he exclaimed, “glo- 
rious for both sides, rf one was defeated. For 
only American freemen could have fought the 
two sides to such a battle. Think of the long run 
to it, and the three da3's’ deadly struggle. 

“But, you, if you had not been such a brave 
boy, I should not be here to talk about it to-day. 
I never have done half enough to repay you.” 

“But you can now, colonel,” said Culverwell, 
with a serious look and solemn tone. “I have met 
you here because I have a favor to ask. You 
know how much Captain Clingman has done for 
me. He sent me away to school for two years; 
then, when I enlisted, he got you elected major 
and me lieutenant. When I came home, he gave 
me a start, and now I am making money fast. But 


THE CONGRESSIONAL CONVENTION AT HAND 89 

all I have I owe to him. And now he has set his 
heart on Jack’s going to Congress, and we all want 
to see him there. He is the pride of the whole 
Clingman connection. We think that he has a 
great future before him, that he is the coming man, 
and we want to see him get started before some 
big railroad company offers him a princely salary 
and takes him away from us. If ever he goes to 
a great city and is making money hand over fist 
he is lost to this congressional district. 

“That you can get the nomination, we know, 
but if you withdraw, the way is clear for him. You 
think you owe me a debt, though I do not; I owe 
the Clingmans; suppose we discharge both debts 
at one stroke by your withdrawing. What do you 
say ?” 

“I don’t say,*’ replied the colonel, with a shrug 
of the shoulder. “But I’ll think it over,” he added, 
rising and turning toward the door. 

The conference ended and Colonel Hungerford 
went home. 

“This is a queer mixture of politics, gratitude, 
ambition and scheming,” he said to himself on 
the way home. 

“It is another case of Herodias and her daugh- 
ter, with a change of sex; only that Herodias 
asked for another man’s head, but in this case they 
ask me for my own head. Captain Clingman is 
back of it, and Tom is a tool.” 


90 


COLONEL HUNGERFORD’s DAUGHTER 


The troubled look on the colonel’s face at the 
supper table was regarded by his wife with anxi- 
ety, and she was not long in seeking an explana- 
tion. 

“They want me to withdraw from the congres- 
sional race,” was his reply to her question. 

“Who do you Aiean by ‘they’?” 

“Tom Culverwell, for one. You know what he 
did for me at Gettysburg ; and when he reached 
the regiment again, after escaping, wounded and 
worn out, from the enemy, and the men took him 
up on their shoulders and carried him to m}^ tent, 
I caught him in my arms and told hi'm that if ever 
he wanted me to do anything for him, I would do 
it. And now he wants me to drop out of the con- 
test.” 

“Why?” 

“Because Captain Clingman and himself have 
interests that they want to protect by the election 
of another man.” 

“But who do they want to put in your place?” 
asked Mrs. Hungerford, in a tone that betrayed 
agitation. 

“John Clingman.” 

A strange look came over Mrs. Hungerford’s 
face, but in a calmer tone she said: 

“Yon are not going to withdraw, are you?” 

“For Tom’s sake I suppose I ought to do so. 


THE CONGRESSIONAL CONVENTION AT HANO 9I 

They say of me, ‘His word is as good as his bond,’ 
and I gave my word to him when the blood of 
battle was upon our garments. A promise made 
when the ground is torn with shot and shell and 
the wounded and unburied dead are all around 
you, and the bravest of the living stand by, be- 
comes a solemn covenant which time cannot annul. 
If Lieutenant Culverwell had not sprung between 
me and that descending saber I should have been 
one of the dead that strewed that bloody field, and 
you would have been a widow and Helen an or- 
phan.” 

“A son and husband would have been more 
than I could bear. But it is hard for you to be 
asked to step aside from an honor which seems so 
easily within your reach; and the man who was 
such a hero in battle that day seems a very different 
man now as one of a ring of political schemers.” 

“I know that; politics drags men down, and for 
that reason I should not regret to get out of the 
whole business. When a man becomes a candi- 
date, he almost ceases to be a man. He is way- 
laid by his enemies and plucked by his friends. 
One side robs him of his good name, and the other 
of his cash. I have been called on to give so 
much money right and left that now, when one 
of my horses lifts up his head and neighs as he sees 
me coming, I find myself just on the point of ask- 
ing him how much he wants. 


$2 COLONEL HUNGEREORd’s DAUGHTER 

“I used to think that I was a pretty good sort of 
a man, but now between the two sides I begin to 
think that I shall land either in the penitentiary 
or the poorhouse. 

“I knew how to lead a regiment, and how to 
fight an enemy that stood straight up in battle, 
but these creeping, crawling, slippery, slimy crea- 
tures in politics, I don’t know how to fight them. 
I tell you, wife, it makes me loathe the whole busi- 
ness.” 

“But somebody must stand for principle and 
good government.” 

“I know it, and that was my only reason for 
going into the thing at all.” 

“Do you think John Clingman is in this move- 
ment to have you withdraw ?” 

“No, they have filled him with talk about a split 
in the party and the loss of the district if there is 
not a compromise, but he does not know what 
means they are using to get me to withdraw, and 
I shall not tell him. If I step out he is certainly 
the only man who can be elected, and I can hardly 
help believing that with his rare ability he would 
be more influential than I could be. But how he 
stands towards the corporations is something that 
I do not feel so sure of. The farmers, however, 
have much confidence in him.” 

“He seems to be on our side,” said Mrs. Hun- 
gerford with a smile. 


CHAPTER IX. 


IF WOMEN SHALL VOTE. 

A FEW days later the Millersburg papers an- 
nounced that Colonel Hungerford had declined 
to permit his name to come before the congres- 
sional nominating convention, greatly to the regret 
of his hosts of friends. When the convention as- 
sembled, John W. Clingman was nominated with- 
out much opposition, the railroad faction throwing 
a few votes to another man to allay suspicion 
among the farmers. 

A neighbor boy said to Sammy Suddendrop, as 
they sat under a tree in the orchard, each eating 
his seventh or eighth apple, that he was sorry the 
colonel was not going to Congress, but he supposed 
it would be all in the family anyhow. Sammy re- 
plied that he was mad all over about it, and hoped 
that Jack Clingman would be beaten in both races. 
He would like to see all the farmers and one farm- 
er’s daughter go back on him. 

Just then Helen came tripping down the path, 
looking more beautiful than ever under a broad 
93 


94 


COI^ONEL HUNGERFORD’s DAUGHTER 


summer hat, her hair thrown loosely over her 
shoulders and a great bunch of sweet peas pinned 
on her bosom. 

“What was that you were sajdng about voting, 
Sammy?” she asked. 

“I wish I could make everybody vote as I want 
them to,” he replied. 

“You are not the first one to wish that, but men 
go right on voting as they please. Perhaps you 
think the voting will never be done right until 
women have a hand in it.” 

“That wouldn’t do an}" good. Women don’t 
know anything about politics. 

“If a man as handsome as Jack Clingman kissed 
their babies, praised their daughters, and called 
for two pieces of their cake at a Sunday-school 
picnic or church festival, they would vote for him 
all the rest of his life. They would be sixteen to 
one for him, whatever became of silver, tariffs or 
railroad rates. He wouldn’t have to get up big 
speeches at all, or burn any midnight oil, but just 
oil his hair, part it in the middle, put on a red 
necktie, black his boots and start out with a sweet 
look in his eye, a wide smile on his lips, and a lit- 
tle honey on his tongue, and he would catch them 
all. The women would ding-dong at their old 
men to vote for him, and the girls would tell their 
sweethearts to vote for him, and he would go in by 
forty thousand majority. 


IF WOMEN SHALL VOTE 


95 


“It will be a great day for dudes when women 
get to voting and apron-strings are the pull. States- 
men won’t be in it, and solemn-faced and gray- 
haired wisdom will have to colonize at the head 
waters of Salt River.” 

“But don't you think, Sammy, that the women 
would turn the rascals out?” 

“Certainly, turn them out of jail, where they 
carry them bouquets and nice things to eat. The 
trouble is, you can’t make a woman believe a 
man is a rascal unless he tells her that she is grow- 
ing old, and sharpers don’t do that.” 

“But, Sammy, you will have to ask at least one 
young woman to vote some day. Are you going 
to play dude to win?” 

“No. ril play my fiddle under her window, 
and then ask her to join the band.” 

“I think she would join. But what would you 
do if the man of the house mistook you for a bur- 
glar trying to saw his way into the window, and 
appeared upon the scene with a shotgun?” 

“I’d strike up a funeral march. But, Helen, 
I’m mad about that congressional business. The 
colonel is the best man in all the world, and ought 
to have been elected.” 

“I don’t like the turn affairs have taken, m}^- 
self,” said Helen, while the smile that had been 
playing across her face gave place to a look of se- 
verity which surprised Sammy. 


COLONEL HUNGERFORD’s DAUGHTER 


‘‘I’ll bet,” he said, when she had taken some 
apples and returned to the house, “that he’ll find 
her vote the hardest of all to get.” 

A FAIR JURY BUT DISAPPOINTING VERDICT. 

When John Clingman made his first call after 
his nomination, Helen received him with her usu- 
al grace, but there was a slight shadow of reserve 
in her manner which he could not wholly believe 
was mere imagination on his part. 

But its recognition only quickened his eager- 
ness to bring matters to a crisis, an eagerness that 
became more intense as he soon felt the old sense 
of helplessness under the spell of her attractions. 

“I have no doubt 3^ou will be very busy now,” 
she said during the evening, “with so stirring a 
campaign on your hands, and so many speeches 
to make.” 

“Indeed I shall, and I am trying to get all my 
cases in court in good shape before I start on the 
round of speech-making. But there is one case 
that gives me not a little concern. There are prec- 
edents and law enough for it, but I have had no 
practice of the kind and it perplexes me.” He 
said this with a look at Helen so quizzical and so 
earnest that she was slightly agitated, and for 
a moment toyed with her fan. 

“What troubles me most,” he continued with 


IF WOMEN SHALL VOT'E 9*/ 

the same uneasiness, “is to know how to handle 
the jury.” 

“I thought that handling a jury was your special 
talent, Mr. Clingman. I have heard much about 
the power of your eloquence over them ; how you 
make them laugh and weep, and see things all 
your own way.” 

“That is a jury of twelve, but a jury of one is 
different.” 

“But it is against the law to try a case before a 
jury of one,” she said, assuming a defensive air. 

“That is true of a case against another man, 
but when it is your own case, and you are willing 
to submit to a Jair judge, it Js all right.” 

Helen observed the emphasis on the word “fair,” 
and said nothing. 

The young lawyer wished that she had said 
something, for he was at a sore loss to know what 
to say next. 

Finally he said: “Helen, I am willing to sub- 
mit the case to you.” She rose, went to the win- 
dow and fanned herself with a deliberation that 
was not encouraging. Then turning toward him, 
she replied: “Mr. Clingman, I have little knowl- 
edge of law or precedents in such a case, and I 
am afraid that you have appealed to a poor tri- 
bunal.” 

“But there is no other,” he said with deep ear- 


98 COLONEL HUNGERFORD^S DAUGHTER 

nestness. “I have admired you from your child- 
hood; I have seen j^ou unfold into beautiful and 
brilliant womanhood and — and — lost my heart.’’ 

He had risen and was standing close beside her, 
and as she turned toward him with flushed face 
she seemed to him radiantly beautiful. 

“Have you no word to say?” he asked, “or 
shall I put the old interpretation on your silence?” 

“No, Mr. Clingman, my silence is not an an- 
swer. How can I speak the word that you want? 
I have my life planned for two years ahead, and 
the plan does not include another. But most of 
all, I do not feel that I know you sufficiently well. 
In the former years I was a child and took little 
note of character, then in school and absorbed in 
books, and now I am just free to look about and 
think. But you are a man of professional success; 
you know people and the world, and you have 
been named for a high honor. You are already 
a leader among men, and seem so far beyond a 
mere school-girl. You are in politics, and what 
effect that has had, or ma}^ have on you, I don’t 
know; and to be frank, you can hardly know 
yourself. But I feel somewhat troubled over what 
happened to my father. You can understand me 
if I say that I think there is something very un- 
certain and very exasperating in political affairs. If 
my aspirations in life were to be hinged on nomi- 


IF WOMEN SHALL VOTE 9^ 

fiating conventions lam afraid that there would be 
many disappointments.” 

Helen felt that it was a manly face that had sud- 
denl}^ become so pale, and she was deeply moved 
when he said in a husky tone: 

“ Helen, I know that I have offered you my heart, 
that in love and judgment you are the one woman 
who answers to my ideal of a life companion; you 
inspire me, you teach me, and make me better.” 

“I admire you, Mr. Clingman, and no man 
that I ever met brought to me so much that I en- 
joy in conversation and friendship. But for the 
present let us only be friends.” 

•‘The present might prolong itself into eternity.” 

“For two years I shall be as I am now. We 
shall know ourselves and each other better then; 
and in the meantime you will be very busy. In 
fact, I am almost afraid that you will forget to call 
on me.” 

“And this means no promise?” 

“No, Mr. Clingman, only that I shall say no 
more to another in the two years than I have said 
to you, and I know that I shall not cease to admire 
you, and to follow you in your public career with 
deep interest. And you will still be a friend?” 

“1 shall,” he replied in a subdued tone. Then 
he looked at her long and earnestly, said good- 
night, and went away. 


lOO COLONEL HUNGERFORd’s DAUGHTER 

Helen stood at the door watching him until he 
disappeared in the darkness, then she retired and 
sobbed herself to sleep, wishing that it had not 
happened. 

John Clingman went home wishing too that it 
had not happened, and saying over and over to 
himself that it would not have come out just that 
way if he had not taken the honor which seemed 
to belong to Colonel Hungerford. 

“ Plelen is in doubt about my part in that matter,” 
he said, ‘‘and she is going to await developments. 
She shall have proof enough of my friendship to 
her father.” 

But Helen’s real thought was that she had fol- 
lowed her head more than her heart. She had 
made her inclinations yield to her purposes. 

The next week Helen left for an eastern col- 
lege, and they did not meet again until after her 
return from Europe two summers later. 


CHAPTER X. 


A SUDDEN SET-BACK. 

“Are you going to wave the bloody sbirt in your 
campaign speeches?’’ asked Judge Barrier as he 
dropped into a chair in John Clingrnan’s private 
office. 

“No, indeed,” was the reply. “What is the 
use of fighting the war over again ? It will neither 
raise the dead nor help the living. I fought the 
Confederates when the war was on. There is 
something else to fight now.” 

“What, for instance?” 

“Let me ask you a question. Why does Colonel 
Hungerford lose money by his coal lands while 
others make money?” 

“You’d better ask the colonel himself.” 

“I have asked him. He is in the dark. I am 
asking you now. You are not in the dark.” 

“If you were older, 3^00 would not ask such 
questions at all while running for office.” 

“Old in tricker}', you mean?” 

“Don’t press the question. Jack; it comes too 
close home.” 


161 


102 COLONEL HUNGERFORD’s DAUGHTER 

“But home questions are what I am after.” 

“Your father and Culverwell are not losing 
money, are they?” 

“No, they are making mone 3 L” 

“Then take the hint and subside. You surely 
don’t want to strike up against them, do you?” 

“I have no wish to come in conflict with my 
father’s interests, or Culverwell’s either. But if 
the Clingmans and Culverwells can’t make money 
without making their neighbors poor, they’d better 
not make money at all. Come now. Judge Bar- 
rier, let us get right down to the facts of the case. 
The railroad company gives them a rebate, don’t 
it? And Colonel Hungerford has to pay the sched- 
ule rates? And they can always have cars when 
they want them, and he^can’t. Isn’t that so?” 

“You seem to be turning yourself into an inves- 
tigating committee before you are elected. You’d 
better wait at least until you get to Washington.” 

“No, 1 shall not wait. Colonel Hungerford put 
a mortgage on a quarter section of his land the 
other day. I know what is the matter, and it has 
got to stop. You fellows are smooth and deep, but 
I tell you now that all the coal which the railroad 
company carries out of those Coal Creek mines 
must go at the same rates. 

“If the company don’t agree at once to stop its 
discriminations, you will hear of some speeches up 


A SUDDEN SET-BACK 


103 


and down this district that you won’t like. You 
can see the division superintendent and have the 
matter fixed.” 

“This is a brash piece of business, but I’ll see 
him.” 

For some days Judge Barrier made himself in- 
visible, and no word came from the division super- 
intendent. But a week after the interview the man 
from New York, who had given Colonel Hunger- 
ford so much anxiet}^ asked John Clingman for a 
private interview. 

“My business,” he said, “is not of a pleasant 
character, Mr. Clingman, but it should receive 
your immediate attention. lam in possession of 
some facts that cannot be divulged without doing 
great damage to your prospects in the congres- 
sional campaign. But I am under no obligations 
to keep them secret and do not know that I shall 
unless it is made my interest to do so. Now you 
know matters that the railroad company don’t 
want known; I know matters that you don’t want 
known. You are a smart lawyer, smart enough 
to know that the best thing is to agree to keep still 
all around.” 

“What are your facts?” 

“Oh, don’t play the innocent; you know all 
about them.” 

“I have heard it hinted that you were paid a 


104 COLONEL HUNGERFORD’s DAUGHTER 

thousand dollars not long ago. Is that a fact?” 

“Yes, and I’ll be paid several thousand more be- 
fore I get through here. This is a rich lead.” 

Clingman rose from his seat, walked the floor, 
looked nervousl}^ at his visitor, and then threw of! 
his coat, remarking that it was very warm. 

The man turned his wicked little black eyes 
upon him and said with a sneer: 

“It will be a geat deal hotter before this thing 
is all over with.” 

“Then I’ll open the door and let in some more 
air,” and flinging it wide open, he caught the man b}^ 
the collar, and dragging him from his seat through 
the door, pitched him headlong downstairs. 

“You will find it cooler out doors,” he said, as 
the fellow slowly picked himself up and hobbled 
away. 

Late in the evening the man slipped into Judge 
Barrier’s office, with several patches of court plas- 
ter on his face and a rheumatic limp in both legs. 

“What is the matter,” said the judge with a 
look of surprise. “How did it work?” 

“Work?” exclaimed the man with a volley of 
oaths. “It worked — ” and here he swore for an- 
other minute or two — “It worked like an old rusty 
cannon that explodes on a Fourth of July, and 
knocks the fellow over that touches it off.” 

“What did he do?” asked the judge, growing 
excited. 


A SUDDEN SET-BACE 


lOS 

‘‘Do? Why, the young scoundrel jumped on 
me as quick as a streak of blue lightning, and 
pitched me downstairs.” 

“He is a terror,” exclaimed the judge, starting 
from his seat. “What in the name of Sam Hill 
ever made us nominate him for Congress?” 

“He’s worse than a kicking mule and a buck- 
ing mustang. The next time ask me to light a 
dynamite bomb with the end of my cigar, or do 
something else that’s easy, but don’t ask me to 
come from New York again to work Jack Ciiiig- 
man. I’ve talked to many a fellow in New York. 
They’re soft like, and when the}^ see that you have 
got them in a corner, they come down like lambs. 
But your fellows out here in the wild and woolly 
West don’t have sense enough to know when 
you’ve got them in a corner, or how to smooth 
things over like gentlemen. 

“But, judge, somebody has got to pay for this 
trip. It will take more than court plaster to cover 
all these bruises. Some of you fellows will have 
to spread it on thick.” 

There was a tap at the door, and when the judge 
opened it, John Clingman’s office boy handed him 
a note. After reading it he said: 

“This note is from Clingman; he says that if I 
don’t send you back to New York he will send 
you to the penitentiary. You must take the next 
train.” 


I06 COLONEL HONGERFORD^S DAUGHTER 


“Not much, without some money 

“I can’t give you any money. Go to the hotel 
and keep shady for a day or two.” 

When the man was gone Judge Barrier said to 
himself; “Jack Clingman can pitch people down- 
stairs all he wants to, but it will take some Cling- 
man money to help pay the bill; and some of these 
fine days he will have'to get off his high horse too. 
It is a long lane that has no turn.” 

Three da3’'S later John Clingman received a po- 
lite note from the division superintendent inform- 
ing him that coal rates on all shipments from the 
Coal Creek mines would be reduced, and that he 
hoped to have enough cars for all shippers without 
delay. He also complimented him on the vigor 
with which he was conducting his campaign, and 
heartily wished him success. 

A HUSTLER. 

From that time until election day John Cling- 
man was hardly seen in his office or on the streets 
of Millersburg. He realized that the time was 
short and that the contest would be close, and 
he threw himself into the campaign with an ener- 
gy that surprised even the old neighbors, who had 
always thought him an amazing worker. Aware 
that there was some dissatisfaction in his own 
county over the displacement of Colonel Hunger- 


A SUDDEN SET-BACK 


107 

ford, he took his chestnut-sorrels and hurried from 
one schoolhouse to another, everywhere meeting 
large audiences and winning golden opinions. 
With his slouch hat, old blouse coat and country 
air, he looked like the plough-boy of other days; 
and when he warmed up to his subject, threw open 
his shirt collar and pulled up his sleeves, the farmer 
boys went wild. “He goes at it as if he was 
pitching hay on a hot day,” they exclaimed. 
“Hurrah for Jack I” 

And the old men soon stopped grumbling and sulk- 
ing and fell into line enthusiastically. They said that 
he was a farmer’s boy, a soldier and a neighbor’s 
son, and if they could not trust him, whom could 
they trust? 

“There are three kinds of men,” said an old 
wise head, “that make poor congressmen — the 
man that can be bought, the man that can be 
fooled, and the man that can be downed in debate. 
Jack Clingman is none of these. He can’t be 
bought, fooled, or beat in debate.” 

In the large towns up and down the railroads 
the slouch hat and old blouse coat gave place 
to a suit of the latest st3de, and the young candi - 
date excited almost as much admiration b^’ his hand- 
some personal appearance and elegant manners, 
as by his splendid logic and persuasive eloquence. 

To only one class of persons was he disappoint- 


I08 COI^ONEL HUNGERFORD’s DAUGHTER 

ing. The ladies said that he was too shy. They 
didn’t see why a man who was so much at home 
on the platform before all kinds of people couldn’t 
be a little more at home in the parlor with a few 
mammas and daughters. They did not know that 
he had not yet recovered from a parlor experience. 

When the darkness of night settled down on 
election day, and the returns began to come in, 
they looked bad for Clingman. The cities and 
towns were the first to report, and the word soon 
came that the railroad employes had scratched the 
ticket badly. His sisters, who had gathered around 
him, with a score of old schoolmates and neigh- 
bors, began to look sober. 

“You didn’t wave the bloody shirt enough,” 
said a neighbor. 

“You ought to have pitched into the dead Con- 
federacy and fought the war over again.” 

“You didn’t kiss enough of the babies,” said 
Mildred. 

“You didn’t eat your pie with your knife when 
you were in the rural districts,” exclaimed Daisy. 
“They thought you were stuck up.” 

“You walked past too many saloons,” said an- 
other neighbor. “You will have to learn to drink 
and smoke before 3’ou try it again.” 

“You neglected the weather,” said an old 
’squire. “It was so dry that the farmers couldn’t 
plow and they laid it on you.” 


A SUDDEN SET-BACK 


109 

‘‘But you wait until we hear from the farmers,” 
said Clingman, calmly. “When the country mes- 
sengers begin to gallop into town, the tide will 
turn.” And it did. By midnight the farmers’ vote 
was coming in heavily from all parts of the dis- 
trict, and Clingman was soon neck and neck with 
his opponent. At two in the morning he had a 
safe majority, and his sisters congratulated him 
with kisses, a dozen or more pretty neighbor girls 
taking advantage of the excitement to do the same. 

“You won’t be too proud now to come out and 
see us, will you?” they shouted, as they climbed 
into their buggies and family carriages and drove 
away. 

But there was one whom John Clingman sorely 
missed in the excitement of his triumph. However, 
the next day Colonel and Mrs. Hungerford came 
into his office and warmly congratulated him on 
his success. Among the many letters of congratu- 
lation was one from Helen, in which she highly 
complimented him for his brilliant campaign, and 
expressed the hope that he would find public life 
all that he had fondly anticipated. 

John Clingman availed himself of this opportu- 
nity to begin a correspondence of which the reg- 
ularity was sufficient proof of interest on both sides. 

From Lindell Norwin also came a brief note of 
compliments and good wishes. At the same time 


no COLONEL HUNGERFORD’s DAUGHTER 

Lindell wrote to his much disappointed mother 
that his often deferred visit would have to be given 
up until relieved from the great pressure of his 
profession. 


CHAPTER XL 


OFF TO EUROPE. 

In June of the following year Helen Hun- 
gerford and Mildred Clingman, in company with 
a few eastern friends, sailed from New York for 
Europe. The steamer went out on an evening 
tide. The passenger list was large and notable, 
and for an hour before sailing groups of friends, 
troops of merry young people, and smiling fathers 
and mothers, made the scene as exciting and con- 
fusing as it was enjoyable. Great bouquets and 
baskets of flowers were heaped upon the table of 
the saloon; there was a mingling of kisses, admon- 
itions, laughter and tears. Young men and wom- 
en, with the freedom of school-children, shouted 
their partings from deck to wharf. The whistle 
shrieked its warning ; the bell struck ; officers as- 
serted themselves; sailors caught the ropes and 
tugged at the gang-plank; there was a tingling 
of little bells below; tugs snorted, stretched their 
big hawsers and pulled hard at the stern. The 
great steamship rocked, swung loose, backed into 
111 


II2 


COLONEL HUNGERFORD S DAUGHTER 


the Stream, turned slowly and laboriously in its 
water-bed, and then headed for the Atlantic and 
the Old World. Yachts with their white sails to 
light June breezes hurried out of the track, ferry 
boats dashed away to right and left, and incoming 
vessels whistled their greetings. The mighty city 
swung into the rear, the green hills of Staten 
Island lifted their well rounded forms into the twi- 
light, Long Island presented arms, a rocket shot 
into the air, and then another, and the floating 
palace, winged with speed, and freighted with a 
thousand lives and hearts that throbbed with the 
pulse of its power, was ploughing its way through 
the deep. 

When the dinner hour came and Helen and Mil- 
dred took up the passenger list which was laid at 
each plate, they turned to one another with a look, 
and almost a cry of surprise. Lindell Norwin’s 
name was on the list, but the shy glances which 
they shot across the tables did not find him. They 
had not seen him for three years, and what with 
the possibilities of whiskers and increased dignity, 
they did not feel quite sure of recognizing him 
short of a face to face encounter. 

But when dinner was over and they had gone 
upon deck, and were taking their first look at the 
little curling waves laughing and glistening in 
the moonlight, Lindell came briskly towards 
them. 


OFF TO EUROPE 


II3 

have been hunting for you,” he said. ‘‘I sa\v 
your names on the passenger list, and have given 
myself no peace until I found you.” 

There was so much of the old schoolboy man- 
ner in his approach that it closed the gap of years, 
brushed away changes, and made it all seem ‘‘just 
like old times,” as Mildred expressed it. 

In the mutual explanations which followed he 
told them that he was in company with a particular 
friend, a Mr. Stanvelt, who with his mother and 
sister was going directly to Paris, where the latter 
were to remain, while the two young gentlemen 
made a visit to Italy, Mr. Stanvelt stopping at the 
Lakes and he going on to Rome. For that rea- 
son, he said, they had taken a French liner. 

In reply to his inquiries Helen told him that 
they would go from Havre to Brussels, take a little 
run out to Waterloo, then to Rotterdam, The 
Hague and Amsterdam, then across the low lands 
of Holland and the Rhine valley to Cologne, up 
the Rhine by steamer to Mainz, thence to Lucerne 
and on to Rome. They were making a summer 
visit to the Eternal City, she added, because 
Mildred and the rest of the party were to return in 
October, but it was her own expectation to remain 
abroad for a year. 

“I hope we shall be good sailors,” said Mildred, 
“and that the winds will toy gently with the waves 
while we are crossing.” 


1 14 COLONEL HUNGERFORD’s DAUGHTER 

‘‘They can be very ill-mannered and indifferent 
to one’s wishes, as I have had reason to know,” said 
Lindell, “but my mother always keeps watch of 
winds and clouds when I am on the sea.” 

“She will have some other mothers to help her 
this time,” was the reply. 

“Mothers believe in prayers,” he said. “I used 
to.” 

“ But you have outgrown them now ?” asked 
Helen. 

“Parted with them, whether by going up or 
down, I hardly know.” 

“But how strange,” he continued, “that we who 
used to make barefooted tracks in the same dusty 
road on the way to the little district schoolhouse, 
and then separated for college, should now find 
ourselves on the same steamship headed for the 
old Rome that we used to read about so much I” 

“It was you boys who went barefooted, not we,” 
said Mildred. 

“Certainly we did,” said Helen. “Many a time 
I pulled off my shoes and stockings, hid them in 
a fence corner, and on our way home we waded 
in the little brook and tried to catch minnows with 
our sunbonnets for nets. Those were happy days.” 

“And are not these?” asked Lindell. 

“Yes, but in childhood one can laugh one mo- 
ment without falling into solemn reflection the 
next.” 


OFF TO EUROPE 


II5 

When they had parted for the night Lindell said 
to himself: “And these are the two little girls 
that were always going about hand in hand, one 
never crying without a tear from the other, eating 
the same apple and dividing their flowers. One 
of them I always liked, and the other — well, per- 
haps I loved her a little, as such schoolboy affairs 
go. But they don’t go on when we get older and 
wiser,” he added with a half determined look, as 
though unconsciously putting himself on the de- 
fensive. 

They met often during the passage, as was nat- 
ural from old associations; and the charm of beau- 
ty and vivacity on the one side was well matched 
by Lindell Norwin’s rare conversational powers 
on the other side. He was a master of the easy, 
flowing and vivid style which has done so much 
to make the best type of American newspaper 
writers a power in the land. 

Although still young, with the instinct and habit 
of his profession, he had gathered a large fund of 
information which was always available. But he 
was fast developing into the polished worldly kind 
that think the problem of life most conveniently 
managed by taking neither the world nor ourselves 
seriously. Events, ideas and problems were to 
him questions great or small as they did or did 
not furnish matter for newspaper columns, and 


Il6 COLONEL HUNGERFORd’s DAUGHTER 

not as they pressed upon his own inner life. If a 
theme was good for a weighty or brilliant article it 
meant something, otherwise not. In conversation 
he had the habit too, so common to his profession, 
of extracting information and ideas from every- 
body he met, a process which is rarely resented 
by those to whom it is applied. For most persons 
enjoy talking about their own profession, and, 
when rightly touched, about themselves. Put a 
man on his native heath in conversation, and 
whether his knowledge is great or small, you have 
a talker. 

LindelTs interest even in his two beautiful friends 
was dominated in part by his habit of drawing out 
ideas from all sources. 

LINDELL EXTRACTS SOME IDEAS FROM HELEN. 

“You are going to Waterloo,” he said to Helen 
while walking the long round of the deck to get 
up an appetite for dinner, and Mildred was in her 
stateroom trying to stifle some sj^mptoms of sea- 
sickess. “What is the attraction there?” 

“Well, it is not that of the woman who sees a 
little blood -spot on the ground, screams, goes 
away, then comes back and screams again, but 
because it is Waterloo, and there is onlj’ one Water- 
loo in the world, for there has been only one Na- 
poleon. Think what a career of victory and of 


OFF TO EUROPE 


117 


blood it ended! The French revolution was the 
greatest of all tempestuous revolutions which have 
swept over the world. Of course, I do not say 
that there have not been greater revolutions in 
peace, but in war and waves of blood this was the 
mightiest storm on the human sea. But the hands 
of the clock stopped there, and were turned back, 
but time goes on and the world goes with it. Na- 
poleon is dead and his body in a block of porphyry. 
But the fire of the French revolution still tingles 
in the veins, and there will always be revolution in 
the blood of the race while want cries and is not 
heard, and hands struggle and clutch at hope and 
are empty. 

“It is my opinion that Providence used the Cor- 
sican in his career of mad ambition, but at Water- 
loo Providence dropped him, cast him aside almost 
as boys throw away an orange peel, or men the 
stub of a burnt cigar. He was a spent force, a 
consumed energy, a mighty man burned to ashes 
in the furnace of his own consuming ambition and 
pride.” 

“But why does the world turn back to him so 
often with renewed interest? Why these revivals 
of Napoleonism ?” 

“Because the world loves a brilliant spectacle, 
and Napoleon’s career of conquest is the most daz- 
zling spectacle in all the annals of war. But there 


Il8 COLONEL HUNGERFORD’s DAUGHTER 

is a greater motive in these revivals. As the race 
grows older and looks deeper into life, it becomes 
more and more interested in the power of the hu- 
man spirit. And no man that ever lived furnishes 
such an illustration of this power as the man who 
stepped upon the raging billows of the French 
revolution when a mere boy, stilled the awful 
storm of his people’s passion, caught all the forces 
in his hand, turned them to his own purpose, and 
brought all Europe to his feet. 

“Think what he put into a few years, into 
hours, into the very minutes I He said that the 
Austrians lost a victory because the}^ did not know 
the value of fifteen minutes. One is tempted to say 
that Napoleon is the only man who ever knew the 
tremendous value of time, or the amazing resources 
of the human mind. Did you ever read his life 
without feeling how mighty we could all be if we 
were only awake to the power within us? An 
American college president has said that three- 
fourths of our energies lie dormant. In Napoleon 
nothing slept. All, all was action, and every en- 
ergy an electric motor. While leading vast armies 
to signal victories, he was ruling the empire at 
home down to the last detail. 

“ It is this that takes me to Waterloo. I want to 
stand on the wheat field where it ended, and think 
it all over again. Of the sin, shame and wrong of 


OFF TO EUROPE II9 

his career I have not spoken, for you only asked 
what attracted me, and on this I have dwelt.” 

Lindell found it easy to agree with Helen’s view 
of Napoleon, but he was not long in discovering 
that along the line of religious convictions she 
presented points of resistance which he took pleas- 
ure in antagonizing. Like all skeptical men, he 
never felt himself convinced by his own arguments 
or at rest in his positions. A great authority has' 
said that skepticism is arrested thought. The result 
is that the arrested thought is always trying to break 
loose and go on. 

“We spoke of the prayers of our mothers last 
night,” he said; “do you believe in prayer?” 

“Why not?” 

“Because the laws of the universe are eternal, 
unchangeable. God don’t suspend them or change 
them to answer anybody’s prayers.” 

“But who says He does?” 

“Why, that is what prayer virtually means.” 

“No, it does not. It is a law of water, the eternal, 
unchangeable law of gravity, to run down-hill, but 
the great pumps down there. in the hold are forcing 
it up-hill. The law of gravity has been neither sus- 
pended nor altered, but man’s intellect has devised 
a means of overcoming this law and taking water 
up, where the law would take it down. It is brain 
against water, and mind against matter, and mind 


120 COLONEL HUNGERFORd’s DAUGHTER 

rules. God is mind, and rules. He is not a slave 
to law and blind force, but the master. 

“ If I asked you to carry a cup of water up-stairs 
to a sick child, would you plead that it would violate 
the law of gravity to take water up-hill? And 
must God the Father of all be hidden helplessly 
behind law while his pain-smitten children hope- 
lessly cry to him? 

“A child cries and a mother hears and comes. 
Would there be this cry of prayer in our hearts if 
God did not hear and help? 

“We skim over these waters against wind and 
wave. The might of man’s genius has found 
forces for overcoming them, that is all. Vast are 
the secret forces which God has at hand. An 
answer to prayer is no more of a miracle than this 
world would now be to Caesar if he were suddenly 
to step into it again. While we ride on top of the 
waves, underneath is a cable flashing messages to 
and fro, outrunning time and setting distance at 
naught. What would Caesar say to that if he were 
to step suddenly upon this deck and you were to 
tell him of it? He was skeptical, but there is not 
a miracle in the Gospels which he would not more 
readily believe than this story of the ocean cable. 
And yet how simple the explanation! Man has 
discovered and applied forces in a way that Caesar 
never dreamed of, though he was a paragon of in- 


OFF TO EUROPE 


I2I 


tellect. And why may not the Creator know of 
forces which man with all his progress may not^ 
discover and handle in the next thousand or ten 
thousand years? I do not say this because I think 
God needs to use physical force, but because we can- 
not think these matters out without predicating 
physical force.” 

“But don’t you think that prayer is mostly for 
the internal or spiritual benefit of the supplicant, a 
good kind of practice or spiritual exercise?” 

“ It has that effect, but that is not the object. 
When Christ told a parable to teach men that they 
ought to pray, he said that there was a poor widow 
who went to an unjust judge. Did she do that 
simply for the sake of exercise, for the effect on 
her health? No, and no more do men pray merely 
for the sake of spiritual exercise. The first good 
reason for prayer is this: ‘Ask and ye shall re- 
ceive.’” 

“But then, where there is so great mysterj^ why 
should we be asked to believe so much when we 
understand so little? It is always, ‘believe, trust.’” 

“But why did we get aboard this steamship? 
Because we understood all the machinery which 
sends it on its way? For my part, about all that 
I understood was that if I crossed the gang plank 
it would lead me to the other shore; and that is all 
that I need to understand. I trust to the captain 


122 COLONEL HUNGERFORD’s DAUGHTER 

for the rest. Isn’t it largely so out on the sea of 
life? The machinery of the world, of the sun, 
moon and stars, of winds and rains, of buds and 
blossoms, springing seeds and waving harvests, 
of human deeds, human hearts and minds, of sobs 
and tears, of laughter, love and hope, of the infant’s 
cry and the dying moan, of our coming in and de- 
parting hence, is too vast and too intricate for me 
to understand much or even a little of it. I leave 
it all to the Great Captain, who watches over all 
seas, all lands, all homes, all cradles, all graves, all 
hearts and hopes.” 


CHAPTER XII. 


A STORMY DAY AT SEA. 

At rest the sea is gloriously beautiful. In storm 
it is grand. There is but one drawback. It over- 
whelms you with its boundlessness, and reduces 
you to a feeling of helplessness because it spreads 
everywhere, reaches on and on, fills all space and 
leaves no line of escape. To every one it seems 
to say: ‘‘ I have you all to myself. I have smoothed 
out the path by which you came. I can toss moun- 
tains of water across the path before you. What I 
shall do you cannot know until it is done.” This 
sense of helplessness deepens in time of storm, 
when even the greatest ship seems such a little 
thing among the mighty waters, when it reels, 
shivers and groans, when the waters open their 
deep, gurgling throat at its side or thunder across 
its deck, or catch it up in giant arms and pitch it 
to the top of a huge billow and then fling it back 
again into the trough of the sea. Above is the 
dissolving blue of the sky, or changing, shifting, 
whirling clouds; below are the restless, angry, bot- 
123 


124 COLONEL HUNGERFORd’s DAUGHTER 

tomless waters; and you are suspended between 
the two, with nothing to catch at above or to rest 
upon below. It is then, if ever, that you feel what 
a poor weak thing you are among the mighty ele- 
ments which rule the realms of space, and that 
sense and spirit cry out for a firm foundation. 

When Lin.dell came upon deck in the morning, 
he found a storm in possession of the day. It was 
flying its white banners from the crests of the 
waves, and tossing the ship about at its pleasure. 

He was a good sailor, and went to his breakfast 
at the sound of the gong, but the chairs were 
empty. He returned to the deck, hunted up his 
steamer chair, drew his rug about him and kept 
quiet until the noon hour approached. Then he 
sauntered into the library. Nobody was reading, 
but a half-dozen men seemed to be thinking very 
solemnly of home, or of the superior advantages of 
a residence on land. He went to the drawing 
room. It was a spectacle for physicians and nurses. 
Young women and older women had thrown them- 
selves down on sofas or on the carpet, with an 
abandon of helplessness which seemed to say that 
they thought their last hour had come, and they 
did not care if it had. On the stairway he met a 
woman or two who were clinging to the railing 
and slowly climbing up towards the deck, with a 
look on their faces which seemed to mean that 


A STORMY DAY AT SEA 1 25 

they had just received a telegram from home an- 
nouncing the death of the whole family. 

He returned to the deck, took a turn or two 
around its heaving, uncertain surface. He saw, in 
corners here and there, some victims of the day 
who were making a brave struggle with their 
breakfasts, and who, as usual with seasick people, 
had ordered a double menu. Then his attention 
was arrested by a handsome New York girl who 
had been leaning over the side of the vessel, sup- 
ported by two of her friends. When she turned 
back she said, with admirable sang-froid: “Now 
throw me overboard.” 

Next came a jaunty young man who had kept 
his face well to the wind and held out bravely. 
But he suddenly began to turn pale, and started 
for his stateroom; but the ship swung from under 
him, and a prominent organ of his bodji' became 
unmanageable. He seized his cap — it was not 
made or bought for that purpose — but he used it. 

Lindell’s attention was next attracted by an old 
lady who evidently had not been at sea before, 
and was more familiar with the arrangements of 
a quiet country home than with the appointments 
of a steamship. As the vessel swung to and fro 
her uneasiness increased, and it w'as plain that she 
was having a serious struggle with her sensations. 
Near her was the open mouth of a great pipe or 


126 COLONEL HUNGERFORD’s DAUGHTER 

ventilator which conducted the air below into an 
eating room used by the steerage passengers. ■' It 
seemed to be very convenient to her in case of an 
emergency. The vessel lurched again; the old 
lady’s face twitched, and she looked furtively at 
the pipe. There was another lurch, and she strug- 
gled with herself a moment, then hurried across 
the intervening space, put her head in the mouth 
of the pipe and had her battle out with herself, the 
flesh, the ship and the sea. But a storm burst out 
in the eating room below. There were angry 
women and mad men down there; and an officer 
soon appeared upon deck with a thunder-cloud on 
his brow. But a calm look of innocence was upon 
the old lady’s face, and everything was behaving 
itself except the sea and the vessel. 

Late in the afternoon Mildred Clingman came 
on deck, but held out just long enough to tell Lin- 
dell that they had been very much occupied in 
their stateroom during the day, that they had been 
seriously thinking of returning home at once, and 
anyhow they were both agreed that they would be 
willing to give a western farm for a little patch of 
ground to stand on until they had recovered their 
equilibrium. 

Before morning the wind lulled, and when day 
opened it threw its flood of light across a sea 
which had dropped its angry waves into smiling 


A STORMY DAY AT SEA 


127 


dimples. Helen and Mildred appeared in. good 
time, a little paler, but with a cheery air which 
soon broke into sunlight and laughter as they allud- 
ed to the episodes of the previous day. 

Lindell asked them to join his New York friends, 
and then began an acquaintance which had its sig- 
nificance in after days. 

The Stanvelts were an old family, prosperous 
and aristocratic. The mother was somewhat re- 
served in conversation, but had a good, motherly 
manner, a sweet face and gentle voice. The son, 
who was of Lindeirs age and a junior partner in 
his father’s firm, had a face that invited you to 
trust his generosity, but a manner that left you in 
doubt is to how near you could come in social 
matters. He seemed not to have fully made up his 
mind in regard to himself or to care to make it up 
about anybody else. The daughter was pretty 
and graceful, but had evidently been more disposed 
to lean upon her many advantages than to use 
them. She looked admiringly at Lindell, a fact 
which, as their intercourse increased, gave Mil- 
dred more concern than it did Helem 

“Those western friends of yours are rather in- 
teresting,” said Mr. Stanvelt after the little group 
had broken up for lunch. “You are not going to 
monopolize them all the way across.” 

“Go ahead, my boy. It will do you good to ex- 


128 COLONEL HUNGERFORD’s DAUGHTER 

tend your knowledge across the Alleghenies. But 
don’t lose your heart.” 

“You seem rather sensible of danger. Have 
you been hurt?” 

“Oh, no, but young people are apt to become 
sentimental at sea.” 

SOME MORE SPARRING ABOUT CREEDS. 

In the evening while Mildred was promenading 
with their eastern friends, Lindell renewed his 
attacks on Helen’s religious defenses. 

“I don’t believe much in creeds,” he said. “My 
motto, is ‘Character, not creeds.’” 

“That is to say, you believe in apples but not in 
apple-trees, in roses but not in rose-bushes. You 
would grow them on a puff of air, I take it. For 
you might as well talk about raising apples, wheat 
and corn without trunks, stalks or stems, as to talk 
about character without something to grow on, and 
if it does not grow on belief, on what does it grow ? 

“The only fault that I find with creeds,” she 
continued, “is that the church has been disposed 
to turn them into cast-iron fences instead of keep- 
ing them as living trunks and stalks breathed upon 
by the winds of to-day, watered by the clouds that 
now gather and the dews of the m'orning that is ever 
returning. 

“Creeds that are dead are apt to become fuel with 
which to burn heretics; creeds that are alive bring 
forth the fruits and flowers of living virtues. 


A STORMY t>AY AT SEA 1^9 

“In the nature of the case all creeds have in 
them an element of time and place and environ- 
ment, of special emphasis and particular defense 
against the dangers which called them into exist- 
ence. Not to let those elements drop out with 
changing environment, is to strike them with de- 
ca3^ 

“But where the interests are so great and ques- 
tions concern time and eternity, this world and 
another, it is but natural that the race should try to 
sum up and formulate the wisdom of all ages, the 
results of all prayers and pains and conflicts, in 
creeds.” 

“You speak of another world,” said Lindell, 
“but what is the use of worrying about another 
world I like the saying, ‘One world at a time is 
enough for me.’” 

“That is a good catchword, good to catch idi- 
ots,” said Helen with a smile and a merry twinkle 
of the eye which broke the force of the personal 
application. 

“Suppose,” she continued, “that a blade of 
grass said, ‘A clod of earth is enough for me.’ 
Would it be true? No, for it must have wind, rain 
and dew, the great throbbing forces of the earth, 
night and morning, sunshine and seasons, and for 
these it must have more than a clod, a meadow, a 
valley, a continent and seas and all the planets. It 
must have a universe to grow in. 


t36 COLONEL HUNGERPORD’s DAUGHTER 

“Of only one Being can it be said: ‘He maketh 
the grass to grow upon the mountains,’ and that 
is the Creator of the universe.' And so with man, 
we say that he lives in a town, or in a house by 
the way, but that is only a little fragment of the 
truth. He lives in a universe. His feet are upon 
the earth, but his thoughts are in all worlds. All 
that is above and below the stars speaks to him, 
asks him questions, stirs his spirit, wings his imag- 
ination, beckons to him, bids him run and rise. 
One world never held the human spirit, and never 
can. One age bounds no life. Into the stream of 
to-day’s life flow the currents of all the past. All 
generations helped to build the ship in which we 
are swiftly ploughing the deep. Listen, and you 
can hear the sound of the woodman’s rude axe 
which thousands of years ago hewed out the crude 
little canoe that grew and greatened into this 
palace upon the waters. In all the long way up 
from the woods and wilds of the past, man was 
working toward the promise of the future. And so 
do we to-day. The push of the ages is behind us, 
the promise of greater things before us. Without 
the current behind us, and the hope before us, we 
should be like a boat stranded upon a sand-bar in 
the midst of a stream. This is the double impulse 
that moves the race. The power that spurs the in- 
dividual is his sense of immortality. It moves him 


A STORMY DAY AT SEA I3I 

mightily, girds him with strength, greatens and 
glorifies his life. 

“Was there ever a more beautiful or greater life 
on earth than that of Jesus of Nazareth? And to 
him the world above or beyond was as real as the 
world here. He talked of heaven as familiarly as 
we talk of home and fireside, of going back to it 
as children go home from school. 

“One world is hot enough. Two worlds double 
the motive, double the resolution and the courage, 
multiply the reasons for being good and true, and 
open wide the gates to vision and hope.’’^ 

“But, Miss Hungerford, I do not believe in a 
world of perdition, to use a milder term than is 
generally employed.” 

“Nor do 1, and I am not going there.” 

“But why should any one be sent there?” 

“They are not sent, they go. You have seen 
that the paths are always parting, one to the 
right, the other to the left. 

“From childhood human beings begin to sepa- 
rate, choosing higher or lower, or better or worse 
waj^s. You see that as we grow older the gates 
around us close, the hedges and the walls rise high- 
er. At twenty-five we have passed the gates of the 
school ; at thirty most of the choices of occupation ; at 
forty a man can do little more than walk on in the 


132 COLONEL HUNGERFORd’s DAUGHTER 

way which he has chosen, whether it be prosperous 
or hard and bare. Morally and religiously it is much 
the same. Life closes in upon us hard and strong, 
and at last we come to the right hand and the left 
hand of the great throne, and all is fixed, character 
within, environment without. Wet^ke our places 
in the scale and condition of being. There is one 
thing we are always forgetting in our thoughts 
about future punishment, and that is that our choice 
extends to conduct and not to consequences. A 
woman heated in the ball-room may sit down in a 
draught of cold night air, that is her act, but the 
cold, the cough and the consumption which follow 
are consequences which she does not choose. 

“A young man may begin a course of dissipa- 
tion, that is his own will; the drunkenness, the 
poverty and the ruin which follow are conse- 
quences beyond his will. Penalties are fixed by 
eternal laws, by infinite fiats. We cannot will them 
away, or think them away, or measure or modify 
them.” 

“ Let that pass ; but how do you prove the Bible ?” 

“I don’t pro've it. It proves itself. ‘That the 
Scripture may be fulfilled,’ is an awful saying, 
as well as a good one. This world is run on a ba- 
sis of fulfilling scripture. It fulfills itself on those 
who disobey it, and to those who believe it. Mil- 
lions have proved its warnings true in their misery, 


133 


0 

A STORMY DAY AT SEA 

groans and tears. Millions of others have scaled 
the heights of its promises with triumphant shouts. 

“ But let me ask you a question,” said Helen, 
turning and gazing steadily at Lindell. ‘‘Why 
do you drink wine? Your mother is a great tem- 
perance woman and taught you to let it alone.” 

Lindell was a little perturbed by the suddenness 
of this question, but was too much master of him- 
self to permit more than momentary embarrass- 
ment. 

“Life on a western farm,” he replied, “is very 
different from the social whirl in a great city. 
Mother’s ideas of raising a boy are as simple as 
raising chickens. But when a boy gets out into 
the world, he finds life very complex , he don’t like 
to seem a tenderfoot. If you have been brought 
up like a blade of grass it is well to discharge your 
youthful identity as soon as possible. In Rome 
you must do as the Romans do. Don’t you see 
that everybody drinks on a steamship? When we 
cross a gang-plank we are out of a temperance 
country. It is wine, bottles of beer, champagne, 
something, at every meal and between meals. You 
will drink wine in Rome for your health ?” 

“And you don’t draw the line bn wine or health ?” 

“No, not always.” 

Helen looked away, and- the lines of her face 
seemed to be settling into a resolution which he 


134 COLONEL HUNGERFORD’s DAUGHTER 

instinctively felt might cross his path some day. 
It was one of those little intimations of the human 
countenance, which failing to perceive or heed, 
we sometimes miss the things we most desire, but 
noting, we are made more wise. 

Lindell went to his stateroom thinking better of 
Helen and worse of himself. 

“She has the simple views of childhood,” he 
said, “cultivated into a fine philosophy! But I am 
being dissolved, the resolutions and beliefs of my 
boyhood are melting awa}^ or oozing out at every 
pore. I have been dropped into the world’s hot 
life like a block of limestone in a kiln, and am 
coming out lime; and I shall probably use myself 
to whitewash the follies of society and the sins of 
the public, instead of being a living stone in the 
eternal temple.” 


CHAPTER XIII 


SEA AIR ACTS ON THE HEART. 

The salt air of the sea stimulates the friendship 
of young people on a steamship, and the abundant 
leisure of idle days gives ample opportunity for its 
cultivation and manifestation. To look into fresh 
young faces is more interesting to anybody than the 
constant gazing at wide waters or into endless 
spaces of sky, and ’when Cupid is hovering near 
and putting fire in maidens’ glances, those who still 
have the most important problem of the heart to 
solve feel the effect in a way which not infrequent- 
ly develops romantic tendencies into sudden ripe- 
ness. 

Before the passage came to a close Lindell’s in- 
terest in Helen was of a kind or a degree which 
he would not have cared to confess to any one but 
himself, and to her he could make no avowal, for 
she avoided that point with the timidity of a fright- 
ened deer. 

When he alluded to the romantic little episodes 
of their school days, she instantly directed his at- 
135 


136 COLONEL HUNGERFORD’s DAUGHTER 

tention to a sail passing along the edge of the hori- 
zon, or commented on the diverging paths of the 
many vessels which left the same port and scattered 
over all the wideness of the ocean; and then add- 
ed, that it was the same with human lives. 

He knew what she meant, but recalled the w'ords 
of his mother, and felt half persuaded that, with a 
maiden’s heart, she might only be avoiding the 
final attack, which she knew meant surrender. 

Mr. Stanvelt felt attracted by her beauty and her 
brilliant powers of conversation, but repelled by 
her strong convictions. 

“I don’t see,” he remarked to Lindell, “how a 
young woman just out of the schools, up on mod- 
ern thought, with such a philosophical cast of mind, 
can hold to such simple and old-fashioned beliefs.” 

“You wouldn’t think it strange,” replied Lin- 
dell, “if you knew her parents. She can readily 
be excused for thinking that her mother’s religion 
is good enough for her. And they say that her 
father remarked when sending her away to school 
that their religion had made several good genera- 
tions of Hungerfords and Elwoods, that it had 
stood by him on the field of battle, and in all the 
affairs of life, that it had helped her mother and 
himself to bear their greatest sorrow, and he did 
not want her to give it up for any new-fangled 
philosophy, or at all, unless she felt profoundly 


SEA AIR ACTS ON THE HEART 1 37 

convinced that she would be stultifying her reason 
to continue to believe as they had. 

“It is my opinion that while she began believing 
as her parents did, she has reasoned the whole 
matter out for herself, and got down on what she 
considers bed-rock. And is not that the rational 
way, for everybody ? 

“To think a belief old-fogyism because our par- 
ents held it, is not more absurd than to continue 
to believe a thing simply because they believed it, 
when we have become old enough to think for 
ourselves. 

“The perilous stage in religious belief is when 
we reach our majority, and reason commands us 
to take possession of the contents of our own 
minds. At that critical period too many people 
empty their minds of past beliefs as they would 
a garret of old rubbish, when they ought to enter 
into possession in their own name, as they would of 
houses and lands, good for a home and for bread.” 

“That is good philosophy,” said Mr. Stanvelt, 
“but why don’t you talk that way to Miss Hunger- 
ford? It would improve your chances, for between 
you and me and the flag-staff, I don’t think she 
likes your skeptical tendencies. When we met 
that steamship this afternoon, she remarked to 
Miss Clingman and myself, ‘That vessel is bound 
in, and we are bound out ; both captains have charts 


138 COLONEL HUNGERFORD’s DAUGHTER 

and compasses and know just where they are going, 
and where they are each day. It ought to be the 
same way with men and women. They ought not 
to be out on the sea of life in a fog without a rud- 
der, compass, course or haven ahead.’ I suspect 
she thinks you are beating about at sea without 
knowing just where you are, or whither bound; 
and being a sensible girl, she would hardly care 
to get aboard 3’our ship. 

“If you want her to take passage with you on 
the sea of matrimony, you’d better nail your flag to 
the mast head and put in some good religious ma- 
chinery right away.” 

“Thank you, but what about yourself?” 

“Well, I don’t think that everything that calls 
itself progress is a new discovery. There are not 
many Columbuses, you know. Men sometimes 
think that they are discovering new land, when 
they are only running into an old-fashioned fog- 
bank. And there are lots of polar expeditions in 
the theological world. Ambitious captains sail out 
of theological harbors, where ships laden with the 
wealth of all lands are coming and going, up into 
the frozen regions of the north where stunted pines 
moan in the sharp winds for mates and where dark- 
ness broods over the land like death, and where 
we have to send two more expeditions to hunt up 
the first. In my opinion the true religion is in the 


SEA. AIR ACTS ON THE HEART 


139 


temperate zone. There is a belt of belief which 
lies across the ages of history in which all great 
things grow, missions, churches, colleges,Christian 
homes, asylums, hospitals,reformatories, republics, 
I shall keep my tent pitched in this belt until I 
see somebody raising something outside of it. And 
I shall have to see them doing it somewhere else 
than in novels. The people who believe nothing, 
and yet are doing everything, are the creatures of 
fiction, the heroes of men and women who like the 
fruits of Christianity but not the faith which bears 
the fruit. There is Dutch blood in my veins, and 
brave little Holland took the Pilgrim baby up in 
its arms when England cast it out, and nursed it 
at its believing breast until it was able to set up for 
itself in the New World. I am not ashamed to hold 
on to the apron-strings of such a mother.’* 

‘‘You and Miss Hungerford would no doubt get 
on together delightfully well.” 

“We shall part to-morrow and I don’t expect to 
see her again, unless I cross her path on my way 
to the Italian lakes. But I am willing to admit 
that she has been like a sea breeze to a man’s in- 
ner life.” 

“But don’t say that we shall part to-morrow, 
Mr. Stanvelt; I have been planning with your 
mother and sister to go with the other party to 
Brussels and Waterloo. I want to see Waterloo 


140 COLONEL HUNGERFORD’s DAUGHTER 

myself, and write about it. It will all be very 
nice.” 

“Yes, it will all be very nice,” said Mr. Stan- 
velt, looking atLindell and broadly smiling. “And 
I hope that it won’t prove another Waterloo to any- 
body.” 

To his numerous inquirers the first officer said 
that they would see land at daylight. “We shall 
be up in good time,” exclaimed the members of 
Helen and Mildred’s party. And with the first glim- 
mer of morning light they were on deck peering 
into the eastern mists. Soon a little hump of land 
stood up in the gray of the morning, looking like 
an overgrown hay-stack in a distant meadow. 
They shouted with that rapture which comes from 
a first glimpse of the Old World, and which can 
never be felt with the same thrill again. 

: As the passengers went ashore, a long line of 
friends and fathers and mothers stood watching 
eagerly for coming sons and daughters or other 
absent ones. An old woman poorly clad looked 
with hungry, piercing eyes toward each coming 
face as if all her heart and hope hung upon the 
expected but uncertain meeting of some one from 
the ship. 

“That woman startled me,” said Mildred, when 
they had passed her. “Do fathers and mothers 
wait with an eagerness like that on the eternal 
sliore?” 


SEA AIR Acts on the heart 141 

They were soon busy with customhouse officials, 
and then taking the waiting train, flew across the 
fair fields of France, often so long and narrow as 
to look like ribbons of varying shades stretched 
across the land. 

Two thousand years of plowing, patting and 
petting, have given to the cultivated hills and 
valleys and plains of Europe a smoothness and 
roundness which make them doubly charming to 
the eye that has long looked upon the wilder face 
of the Western World. And the ride was one of 
delightful surprise. 

At beautiful Brussels they spent the night, and the 
next morning took the train for Braine-la-Leude, 
for it was here and not at the Waterloo station 
that the great battle was fought. 

Common stage coaches or diligences carried 
them to the forks of the road half a mile from the 
station, beyond which is the vast mound erected 
by Great Britain to mark the field, and on which 
stands the victorious lion. 

At the cross-roads were the usual number of 
freckle-faced peasant girls whose stock of English 
was equal to their stock of button-hole bouquets, 
photographs, and other small wares, and who so 
artfully combine the tactics of the coquette, flatterer 
and beggar, as to be quite formidable. 

The men who sold canes were also there — the 


t^2 COLONEL HUNGERFORD’s DAUGHTER 

number of canes which grow on the wheat fields 
of Waterloo is something astonishing — as was also 
the man whose grandfather fought on the memora- 
ble Sunday, and who was eager to show the party 
over the field for a franc apiece, or as much as he 
could get. Ascending the long iron stairway to 
the top of the mound, they looked down upon the 
most famous battlefield of all times. To one who 
has seen Gettysburg, with its magnificent setting 
of lofty hills and mountains, and its great boulders 
which remind him of the hand that guided the 
glaciers in their irresistible sweep across the con- 
tinent, Waterloo looks small and insignificant. 
On all sides are wheat fields with stalks stand- 
ing straight up in the sunlight. Fences and hedges 
run here and there without regard to points of the 
compass, roads slant over the gentle slopes and 
little houses stand by the wa}^ Hougomont is 
marked by a clump of trees, and the place of 
the fierce assault on the left by a group of monu- 
ments — Scotch soldiers fell thick and fast there. 
A plain farm-house which was Napoleon’s head- 
quarters is hardly beyond rifle-shot from the 
mound. It seems but small compass for armies 
fighting for the mastery of the Old World. 

But great is Waterloo, and though the' winds 
long ago carried away the last muau of its dy- 
ing warriors, and the rains waShed out the 


SEA AIR ACTS ON THE HEART I43 

deep stains, and for scores of years men have been 
harvesting bread from the soil which other men 
bathed with their blood, yet it is impossible to look 
upon it without a deep feeling of awe. Far from 
town or fortress or the great places which human 
feet tread, a place for peasants to plow and to pass 
over with the sickle, for larks to soar across, and 
the robin to build its nest in the hedges, yet big 
with human fate, the last stand and struggle of a 
destiny which seemed hitched to the stars. 

“ Do you think,” said Lindell, “ now that you are 
looking down upon Waterloo, that the great Cor- 
sican was beaten because he met a greater war- 
rior?” 

‘‘No,” said Helen, “he was beaten ‘because the 
shadow of a hand was upon the field, because God 
passed over Waterloo.”’ 

“But do you think that he was a physically ex- 
hausted man, the victim of a strange malady that 
robbed him of his strength ? Can it be true that he 
leaned his head upon the table, which they set out 
in that little yard for him, and slept while the bat- 
tle was raging, and that he could scarcely be kept 
awake while fleeing from the enemy?” 

“ I do not know. I am just letting memory hover 
over the field, as the clouds brooded over it on that 
June Sunday, and looking at the columns of hero- 
worshipers marching into the jaws of death, and 


144 COLONEL hungerford’s daughter 

listening to the groans of the fallen and the curses 
of the living when the last blow had been struck, 
and nothing was left but the wretched hope of es- 
cape by flight. 

“How I should like to call Napoleon’s face out 
of the past as it looked at that moment when he 
knew that he was beaten, and that his star had set 
forever! 

“What must the myriads of the dead, whom his 
victorious armies had beaten into the earth, have 
thought when thej^ saw him swept before the 
storm ? If the mad scenes of this world roll before 
the eyes of departed spirits, theirs must have been 
a sweet revenge. 

“But he was Napoleon, and how I wish he had 
been as good as he was mighty!’’ 

“But would he have been so mighty if he had 
been good?” asked Mr. Stanvelt. “There is 
something in a mighty intellect being free from all 
scruples of conscience, left unhindered in the ex- 
ercise of all its terrible energies.” 

“I know it. It certainly is a fair question to ask, 
how much moral and religious scruples have weak- 
ened men — not that it should be so,but that it is so — 
when they do not enter upon a life of goodness 
with the same passionate abandon that other men 
sometimes give themselves over to evil ambitions. 
For this reason, perhaps, we are commanded to 


SEA AIR ACTS ON THE HEART 


145 


love God with all our mincf and soul and heart and 
strength. Anything less than this, is a degree of 
weakness. Goodness is greater than wickedness, 
but a mixture is weaker than either. The devil’s 
might is his absolute freedom from all scruples. 
An archangel’s strength is his freedom from all 
reservations.” 


CHAPTER XIV. 


FROM THE RHINE TO ROME. 

At Brussels the two parties separated, Lindell 
and the Stanvelts taking an afternoon train for 
Paris, and the other party going north to Antwerp, 
The Hague and Amsterdam. The beauty of The 
Hague and its splendid art gallery gave them the 
greatest delight. Upon Amsterdam, quaint, solid, 
built to stay, come storms, floods or fires, with its 
canals, old-fashioned houses and well-fed people in 
the streets, they looked with eager curiosity. 

Crossing over to Cologne, through the fine wheat 
fields which do not yield the palm even to the rich 
prairies of the West, they did what all visitors do 
first, turned their eyes upward along the height of 
its far-famed spire. After running in and out of 
its narrow little streets, admiring its broad avenues, 
filled with new and handsomer homes, and resting 
for a night at its celebrated Hotel du Nord, they 
took a steamer for Mayence. 

They found the Rhine what everybody finds it, 
one of nature’s great poems, written across a land. 

146 


FROM THE RHINE TO ROME 1 47 

What with its terraced slopes, its vine-covered 
hills, its old castles, its little villages nestling be* 
tween the water bank and the heights, and its pret- 
ty homes peeping through avenues of shade trees 
and orchards, it deserves all the praise which has 
been given it in prose and song. 

“Bingen, dear Bingen, dear old Bingen on the 
Rhine!” exclaimed Mildred, as they passed the 
famous village. “I don’t wonder that the soldier 
who lay dying in Algiers sighed for you.” 

At Mayence they saw the fortresses, the parks 
of artillery, and the soldiers tall and straight, and 
the handsome young officers who tip their caps to 
their fellows with a grace cultivated by the training 
of a race. There are some things that it takes 
generations to produce, and the bearing of a Ger- 
man soldier seems to be one of them. It is a flower 
which has blossomed on the stock of a thousand 
3^ears’ growth. 

“Germany,” said Helen, before they left its 
border, “is a military camp. This is war at rest, 
a nation armed to the teeth to keep the peace. But 
where? On its frontier? or on the border line 
between the common claim and the divine right of 
kings? The soldiers wear uniforms and the peas- 
ants sad faces. Young men carry muskets and 
women and dogs draw burdens, and cows plow 
fields and do dairy duty. Would a Western farmer 


T48 COLONEL HUNGERFORD’s DAUGHTER 

plow with a COW? No, he would vote everybody 
out of office before he would come to that. But an 
American would answer his country’s call to arms 
as quickly as one of these soldiers. America has a 
standing army, but it does not stand around in straps 
and stiff clothes doing nothing, but works until the 
drum taps and then is off for duty.” 

At Lucerne they sat upon the piazza of the 
Schweitzerhof in the evening listening to the soft 
music and watching the throngs which glide across 
the quay, while the sweet air of the Alps puts its 
pleasing spell upon the senses. 

The next day they sailed over the lake and 
looked at the spot where Tell sprang from the 
boat, if ever there was a Tell — who can tell? They 
climbed the Rigi,^and looked down upon the clouds 
and far off into the valleys. Snow-capped peaks 
stood up against the horizon, nature’s monuments of 
pure praise, their white robes untouched by the 
dust or smoke of the toiling, hurrying, worrying 
world below. 

With another morning they were on the train 
for Milan, dashing in and out of countless tunnels 
and flying around the edges of fearful precipices, 
glancing with half frightened looks at the huge 
masses of rock which lifted themselves far up into 
the blue sky. And then the scene changed, the 
Alps swung to the rear, and the train swept down 


FROM THE RHINE TO ROME 1 49 

from their great heights into the sunny fields of 
Italy. 

Corn grows here, and wheat, rich meadows of 
grass, orchards and vineyards, and there are signs 
of plenty and thrift everywhere. 

“Were there ever such beautiful fields as these?” 
cried Mildred. “But how primitive their methods 
and implements! Look at them beating out their 
wheat with a flail just as Gideon used to do, or 
tramping it out with oxen. Why don’t they wake 
up? Italy needs to be run through a modern 
threshing machine.” 

“In more senses than one,” said Helen. 

At this moment a motherly woman came for- 
ward and introduced herself as an American, from 
New York. 

“I knew you were Americans when I saw you 
at the station this morning. Your brisk manner 
betrayed you,” she added with a smile. “Nobody 
over here but Americans are ever in a hurry. It 
makes no difference how badly you want your 
breakfast or anything else, or how early your train 
starts, it takes just so long to get it. All move- 
ment seems to be fixed by a law of gravity or cus- 
tom as unchangeable as the law of the Medes and 
Persians. 

“But I heard you speak of going to Rome; do 
you think it safe at this time of the year? There 


150 COLONEL HUNGERFORD^S DAUGHTER 

is always danger of the Roman fever in summer. 
I have reason for fearing it. Last summer my 
niece went there in July with a party of friends — 
she could not wait until fall, being in school — and 
in a few days she was taken with the fever and 
died. Two years ago a young friend of ours, a 
gentleman, died there in the same way. I don’t 
think you ought to risk it. I shall go to Milan, 
take a peep at the Duomo and then go back to the 
lakes, they are so beautiful.” 

“But we all want to see Rome,” said Mildred, 
“and we must all be back in America in autumn 
except Miss Hungerford.” 

“Just so; Americans always travel so far and so 
fast. They want to gain the whole world and — 
not lose any time about it. But do be careful when 
you reach the city; keep out of the hot sun, don’t 
go out at night; don’t drink water, and wrapj^our- 
selves up well if you go into the Catacombs.” 

When she had withdrawn, Mildred said: “That 
was a kind face and a kind voice and a good heart, 
but I wish the lady had not told us about those two 
young people dying. It gave me a chill.” 

“You will forget all about the fever when 3^ou 
see St. Peter’s,” said one of the party who had 
previously visited the city, and had been voted 
chaperon by the rest. 

To dash into Milan in the Italian splendor of 


FROM THE RHINE TO ROME I5I 

an early summer evening is an event which stirs 
the blood of every traveler capable of enthusiasm. 
It is Italy’s most pro'sperous city. The Duomo, 
or cathedral, is the wonder of the world. Its foun- 
dations were laid over five hundred years ago. Its 
fagade is of Carrara marble, white and beautiful. 
Its dome rises to a height of 350 feet, and around 
it stand a hundred pinnacles and 4,500 statues. 
Standing out in the glittering rays of Italian sun- 
light, the massive pile is one of dazzling splendor. 

Within this splendid temple of praise, and of 
pride, Napoleon was crowned king of Italy, and 
Josephine queen. 

‘‘I am thankful,” said Helen, as they looked 
upon it, “that in those days of princely extrava- 
gance, ecclesiastical ambition and bitter taxation, 
they built some things to stand and to bless the 
eyes of all generations. This is poetry in marble, 
man’s attempt to match in material form the psalms 
of praise which lift their snow-covered domes 
above the Alps. It belongs to generations who 
made temples, statues, pictures. We belong to a 
generation that makes money.” 

“And spends it,” said Mildred, “traveling to see 
what others with more art in their blood made 
worth seeing.” 

Milan has a habit of getting up at two or three 
o’clock in the morning to transact the business of 


1^2 COLONEL HUNGERFORD^S DAUGHTER 

the day, a custom which did not conduce to the 
rest of the party in the after part of the night. But 
they were at the morning train eager and expect- 
ant, and were soon hurrying away to Genoa. 

No country looks beautiful when viewed from 
the inside of a tunnel, and the almost endless series 
of tunnels near Genoa snuff out the sunlit scene 
with a frequency that becomes vexatious. 

The halt in the famous old city which claims 
Columbus was not long, and through the after- 
noon they were whirled down the shore of the 
Mediterranean, with the sparkling waters on one 
side, and the luxuriant gardens filled with plum, 
fig and apricot on the other. 

At Pisa they stopped for the night and SundajL 
The hotel was beautiful, with its mosaic floors, 
white marble window ledges and stately columns. 
Great vases of flowers, and urns filled with palms 
and other tropical plants, stood in the halls and re- 
cesses. But it had a deserted air. Pisa is for win- 
ter, and the throngs which had made it a scene of 
brilliant display were gone. Visiting a resort at 
the wrong season is depressing. 

As Helen stood at her chamber window looking 
through its marble frame, an ambitious young 
rooster crowed in the back yard. A tear came into 
her eye. 

“What is the matter, Helen?” asked Mildred. 


FROM THE RHINE TO ROME 1 53 

‘‘I am not shedding a tear, like Peter, because I 
have suddenly repented coming so far. But that 
salute from the back yard made me think of the 
farm and home and mothers five thousand miles 
away. I wish the little fellow wouldn’t crow any 
more.” 

“Let us go and see the Marble Bridge and the 
Leaning Tower, and then you won’t hear him.” 

A short ride took them to the Marble Bridge, 
built from the Carrara quarries, which are near by, 
and spanning the Arno, a structure much visited and 
much admired. Beyond is the Leaning Tower, 
seven stories high, a row of marble columns mak- 
ing each story, and the whole structure leaning 
heavil}^ but why no one knows. Near by is the 
great Cathedral whose foundations were laid 800 
years ago, and whose gold-gilded ceiling is as 
bright and beautiful as it was when the decorator 
finished his marvelous work three centuries since. 

The Baptistry, or Church of St. John, is along- 
side. It is famous for the echo of its dome, which 
comes back with rhythmic repetition that falls upon 
the ear in charming cadence. 

“You see now,” remarked the chaperon before 
they left the once famous capital, “why I said that 
no visitor to Italy can afford to pass Pisa by.” 

ROME. 

As the sun mounted over the hills, stood above 


154 COLONEL HUNGERFORD’s DAUGHTER 

them and poured its wondrous floods of light across 
the land, their train shot past the little houses, the 
farmers in the fields, past lanes and hedges, and 
swept out into the wastes of the Campagna. There 
is nothing as beautiful as an Italian day except an 
Italian night, but nothing can make the Campagna 
beautiful. For it is the bare floor of what w'as. 
When the Caesars died it gave up in despair. Its 
only attractive features are high-horned cattle and 
lofty hay-stacks, built with such a touch of art that 
the pattern must have been made by Michael 
Angelo. 

As the morning wore away the train dashed 
over a valley and touched the bank of a tawn}’, 
sluggish stream. It was the Tiber. Then it 
rounded a hill, passed a rank growth of tall weeds 
up into the open — and before them was Rome. 
There was a shout, laughter, some tears. They 
waved their handkerchiefs and congratulated one 
another. Any demonstration is pardonable at the 
first sight of Rome. But Rome cannot be shown 
on printed pages, or photographed or engraved and 
distributed over the world. It must be seen and 
felt. And it cannot be seen and felt by one who 
lives only in the present. He must look and listen 
through the ages, see the conquerors as they came 
up the Appian way, hear the tread of the old le- 
gions, the voice of Cicero, the command of Caesar, 


FROM THE RHINE TO ROME 1 55 

the cruel shouting of the multitude in the Colos- 
seum, the mad cry of wild beasts, the wail of the 
dying and the prayers and hymns of martyrs. He 
must reach across the chasm which Christ’s com- 
ing cut in time, and put his hand on the pulse of a 
heathen civilization. He must feel its throb of life 
and pain, its yearnings, strivings, ambitions, hopes 
and despair. The city’s ruined temples, fallen 
columns, shattered walls and broken statues, must 
be made to stand up again in all their former state- 
liness and beauty, while the pagan multitude, 
laughing, shouting and weeping, passes by. 

And there must be no stubborn prejudices in the 
heart or high walls of bigotry in the mind, but we 
must let stones and visions speak for themselves. 

THEY TAKE A DRIVE 

In July the sun’s rays at Rome ar.e fierce, pene- 
trating and wilting. But the courage of a company 
of American girl-tourists is something that defies 
wind and weather. The characteristic determina- 
tion of the sex in this country takes on even more 
mettle when abroad. They are there to see the 
country, and they do not stand on the order of 
their going, but go. 

Therefore when the chaperon came out of the 
hotel at the head of her little band, who had armed 
themselves with bits of ice and lemon, there was 


156 COLONEL HUNGERFORd’s DAUGHTER 

an air of business in their manner which promised 
a full afternoon of sight-seeing in spite of the heat. 

‘‘We shall go out the Appian Way,” said the 
chaperon. “It will take us into the fields where 
there are breezes, and to the Catacombs. 

“Drive by St. John Lateran,” she said to the 
guide, as they entered the carriages. 

The Lateran is called the head and mother of all 
the churches of the city and of the world, and it 
is here that the Pope makes his solemn entrance 
into office, and from the balconj^ over the portico 
he sometimes blesses the world. Popes of the Mid- 
dle Ages sometimes blessed their enemies in other 
places. It is in the piazza of the Lateran that the 
“Holy Staircase” is found, taken from Pilate’s 
judgment hall, and once trodden by the feet of 
the Savior, so the tradition says. As they looked 
upon this staircase a feeble old man was ascending 
it, kissing each step as he went. Martin Luther 
once did the same thing, but afterwards changed 
his mind about it with such violent force as to 
shake all Christendom. 

Another little drive and Ihey were in the Appian 
Way. It looked narrow and commonplace. A 
number of one-horse carts were slowly passing 
along, the drivers stretched out on their seats, 
taking the siesta so dear to the hearts of Romans, 
and the horses nibbling at bunches of hay tied to 


FROM THE RHINE TO ROME 157 

the end of the shaft. None the less, it was the 
Appian Way, a way passed by more conquerors 
and more prisoners and watered by more tears than 
any highway in all the world. The very pebbles 
which lie in the road have great stories to tell, if 
the passer-by but bends the ear of memory and lis- 
tens. 

On the brow of a gentle slope they saw a rough 
structure, built of unhewn stones — a pile of stones 
it might be called. It stands hard by the way, and 
alongside is a fig-tree, dust-covered and looking 
weary, as if tired standing in the withering heat 
to watch the old monument. It is the tomb of 
Seneca, the man who wrote such beautiful precepts 
and at the same time did Nero’s bidding, even to 
his last command to go away and die. 

“Beyond that field,” said the guide, waving his 
hand to the right, “St. Paul was beheaded.” 
They know everything about St. Peter and St. 
Paul in Rome, even to the forks in the road where 
Christ met Peter as he was about to leave Rome 
and told him to go back and seal his faith with his 
life. But notwithstanding the uncertainty of tra- 
dition, to look upon the little heap of stones which 
marks the grave of Seneca, and then across the field 
where Paul was “offered up,” starts in the mind 
comparisons and contrasts which have amazing 
significance. One heap of stones for the pagan 


158 COLONEL HUNGERFORD’s DAUGHTER 

philosopher, and all the churches in Christendom 
for monuments to the Christian Apostle. 

A little further out the carriages halted at a low 
stone front with a heavy iron gate. A gaunt old 
man in a monk’s habit, his black gown reaching 
far down toward his feet, appeared and unlocked 
the gate. It is the entrance to the principal Cata- 
comb. 

“Put on 3^our wraps,” said the chaperon, “for it 
is very cool in the home of the dead.” 

“Not always,” said the guide, with a shrug of 
the shoulder and a chuckle. 

The old man handed each a lighted taper with 
such a saintly benevolence of manner that it was not 
difficult to think of him as an angel on guard at the 
home of departed spirits. Then following the guide, 
they^ went down into the long galleries which wind 
here and there, connecting cr3^pts and vaulted 
chambers. In the sides of the galleries are many 
niches, and shelves, and here still lie the bones of 
the dead, along with the relics of funeral obsequies 
in the far-off past. The temptation to pick up a 
bone and carry it away for a keepsake is very 
strong, but the young women, having been properly 
trained in American Sunda3^-schools, resolutely re- 
frained. 

On the return to the city the party passed up the 
famous hill on which Caesar’s palace once stood. 


FROM THE RHINE TO ROME 


159 


Over the gate was the great sign of an enterpris- 
ing restaurant and wine garden firm. There is 
nothing impressive or awe-inspiring about such a 
sign, and the shock was sensibly felt by the whole 
party, except the guide. For to the average Roman 
conductor there is nothing so attractive as a wine 
shop. In sight-seeing he frequently stops by the 
way to adjust his glasses, but not to the eye. 

On the Capitoline Hill they found a pretty gar- 
den in which were apricots and figs and flowers. 
Approaching the Tarpeian Rock, so famous in the 
school-book annals of early Rome, they looked over 
the edge and beheld — a dirty back yard in which 
some begrimed and ragged children were playing. 
But then the poor must have some place to live, 
even if they do pitch their tents on spots made 
eternally memorable by the shades of the past. 

To the Forum and the fallen columns and brok- 
en arches which surround it they turned with an 
interest which had been ripening with their years. 
It was here that the Roman race took that coun- 
sel which meant the conquest of the world; and 
here voices were raised in oratory which will never 
be hushed as long as the world stands, but their 
imperishable eloquence will pass on and on, thrill- 
ing the young heart of each new generation and 
throbbing in the brain of master men to the end 
of time. 


l6o COLONEL HUNGERFORD’s DAUGHTER 

Within the broken walls of the Colosseum they 
stood, as all stand, who realize that they are in the 
presence of a ihighty people’s greatest shame and 
crime. 

It is easy to feel yourself transported to the past 
as you stand upon the sands of the old arena. And 
the visitors found themselves looking back through 
the years at the throngs which once gathered along 
the heights of the now broken wall, throngs eager 
for the flow of blood, the cry of anger and the 
moan of pain. Again they saw the gladiators come 
through the gates, low-browed men, prodded by 
their keepers, sullen and hopeless. The floors 
opened or panels of the walls parted, and into the 
arena sprang wild beasts from African lairs and 
Indian jungles; lions, tigers, and hyenas, hungry, 
maddened by the smell of blood and roaring for 
their prey. 

“Through that door,’’ said the guide, pointing 
to the right, “were sent in the Christian martyrs.” 

There was a shudder, and the faces of these 
young women, who had breathed only the air of 
freedom and been caressed into womanhood by 
loving mothers, paled as there rose before them 
visions of the delicate women who walked into the 
awful horrors of the arena. 

“It must have been an awful moment,” said 
Helen, “when they came out upon this sand, red- 


FROM THE RHINE TO ROME l6l 

dened by blood, turned their eyes toward the cruel, 
scornful, jeering multitude, and then looked into 
the eyes of the wild beasts, felt their hot breath 
upon their cheeks and the fangs rending the flesh. 
Did they tremble or shrink or weep? Or did 
prayer and faith sustain them ? But, oh, the wantons 
that looked down from those seats and shouted 
and laughed at their dying agony I The martyrs 
gave up their lives, but not their faith, and that faith 
has changed the face of the world. 

“But who can stand upon such a spot as this and 
not feel that there is a judgment beyond?” 


CHAPTER XV. 


A DARK SHADOW FALLS OVER THEIR PATH. 

“Was there ever such a dream of beaut}^ as St. 
Peter’s said Mildred, as she dropped into an easy 
chair by the window on the evening of the fourth 
day after their arrival in Rome. 

“No,” replied Helen. “Such a dream never 
floated across my vision, either when I slept or 
read myth or fable or story.” 

“Do you think any church or cathedral will ever 
seem beautiful to us again?” 

“That is my fear. It will be like coming down 
from the Mount of Transfiguration to enter even 
the best of them. How I should like to sit down 
in the great temple and stay there until its splen- 
dor and beauty no longer overwhelmed and dazed 
me, and my senses had expanded into a better 
perception of its proportions and harmonies and 
the poetry of its curves and colors I 

“But to-morrow we are to leave it all behind. 
And it is well, perhaps, for this heat is dreadful. 
I thought to-day that the wind must come straight 
from the sands of Africa, without stopping to caress 
162 


A DARK Shadow falls over t'heir path 163 

the Mediterranean on the way. We have often been 
told why Rome declined and fell. I think now 
that the weather was against it. No nation can 
long rule the world from the mouth of a furnace. 
Whether the power is that of a Csesar or a Pope, 
it must sooner or later wither in such heat as this. 
Empire runs along higher latitudes. The throne 
of this world is set further north.” 

At this moment a messenger was announced 
with a note for Miss Hungerford. She opened it, 
and read it with increasing agitation. “It is from 
the Strangers’ Hospital,” she said, “written by an 
attendant for Lindell Norwin. He is there with 
the Roman fever. We must go to him at once.” 

And ordering a cab, they were soon at the door 
of the hospital. After long, hard persuasion, en- 
forced by the English physician who arrived at an 
opportune moment, they were admitted. “He is a 
very sick man,” said the phj^sician, “but we always 
hope for the best. I insisted on sending for you 
when I learned that you were his friends and in 
the city. To see old friends when so far from 
home will seem like medicine.” 

When the}" entered the private ward in which 
Lindell lay, he recognized them, and with an effort 
held out his hand. “ I am glad that you have come,” 
he said, “but you ought not to be in Rome; the 
season is unhealthy.” 


164 COLONEL HUNGERFORD’s DAUGHTER 

“We shall not stay long with you this evening,” 
said Helen, “but to morrow I shall come again.” 

A mingled look of gratitude and pain spread 
over his face as she said this, and he replied: 
“Think of yourselves rather than me.” 

When they returned to the hotel Helen said: 
“I cannot go away and leave Lindell Norvvin here 
sick. He took my brother in his arms and held 
him while he died, far from home and mother ; and 
I must stay and do whatever friendship can do for 
him.” 

“But if you stay, so shall I,” said Mildred. “I 
cannot leave you here, and neither do I think 
that we ought to leave him. It may be that we 
can do something for him.” 

And so when morning came, the party divided, 
the others going to Venice and then back north; 
and Helen and Mildred establishing themselves in 
the favor of the physician and the authorities at 
the hospital sufficiently to secure freedom of access 
to Lindell’s ward. 

By turns the}' fanned him through the heated 
hours of the day or watched at his bedside through 
the weariness of the night. But he steadil}^ grew 
worse, and on the third day the ph3^sician, a man 
who had come from London and established a fine 
practice in Rome, said that he had but little hopes 
of his recovery. 


A DARK SHADOW FALLS OVER THEIR PATH 1 65 

Helen spoke of Mr. Stanvelt and asked if Lin- 
dell had mentioned him. The physician replied 
that he had, that Mr. Stanvelt was at Lake Como, 
but that Lindell refused to permit any word to be 
sent, as he would immediately come to Rome, if 
he knew he was sick, and he did not want to ex- 
pose him to danger. ‘^He could do no good if he 
came,” the physician added, “but he might want 
to arrange some matters with him. If you think 
he would like to send any message home, you’d bet- 
ter get it from him to-day, for to-night there will 
be a crisis.” 

A little later Helen took his hand and said: “If 
we reach home before you do, and drive over to 
your old home, and your mother comes down to 
the gate as you have often seen her do, what shall 
we say to her about you? Do you want us to give 
her any message?” 

“You are kind,” he replied, “but I shall be in 
America before you are.” 

“You may have to stay in the Alps to recover 
your strength, or something else may detain you, 
and you know how she would like to hear some 
word carried by friendly lips.” 

“Tell her, then, that there was never an hour 
in Rome or on land or sea that some thought of 
her did not flash over my mind. There is but one 
message to send to such a mother as mine — love?” 


1 66 COLONEL HUNGERFORD’s DAUGHTER 

In the evening the physician came again, and 
after a few moments said: “You must be ready 
for the worst. I do not think he can live the night 
out. I feel myself as if it was a personal bereave- 
ment, for he is such a splendid young man.” 

In the early hours of the night he was delirious 
and talked of home and friends. Once he seemed 
to be back on the field of battle, and then passing 
through the night when Elwood Hungerford died. 
And again he spoke of the passage over the sea, 
and hot blushes came to Helen’s cheeks as he 
passionately spoke her name and tried to reach out 
his poor feeble hand. But at midnight he grew 
calmer, and the nurse shook his head. 

“He is sinking,” he said. “I dread the hours 
of the night when nature itself drops into helpless- 
ness, and the very air loses its vitality.” 

Mildred turned toward the window with the 
tears streaming down her face; and Helen came 
to her, and dropping her head upon her shoulder, 
exclaimed: “Oh, Mildred, this is dreadful; it will 
break his mother’s heart. He is her only son, her 
joy and pride and hope. We must not let him die. 
Let us pray for him again.” 

And dropping on their knees by his bed, they 
bowed their heads in silent prayer. The nurse stood 
awed, and silent. The physician for the ward 
came, and said that nothing more could be done. 


A DARK SHADOW FALLS OVER THEIR PATH 1 67 

“But something must be done,” said Helen. 
“I do not think that God will let him die. I shall 
go for the English physician.” 

And before they could remonstrate she had taken 
his card in her hand and was hurrying down the 
stone steps to the street. It was deserted by all 
save the police, and as she darted past one of these 
officers he moved forward as if to detain her, but 
seeing the anguish in her beautiful face, let her go 
on. The whispering leaves in the shade trees, 
and the soft soughing of the winds which crept up 
from the sea, seemed to her like the low voices of 
the departed Romans who once came and went on 
the streets; and she could almost see the forms of 
the “sheeted dead” staiting up before her. 

At the door of the physician’s residence she 
stopped breathless and, after long ringing and 
waiting, a servant came, but only to tell her that the 
doctor had been called out at midnight, and when 
he would return it was impossible to say. 

With almost despairing heart Helen went back 
to the hospital. Lindell still lay in a stupor and 
Mildred was eagerly looking into his face. 

Helen put her hand to his pulse. It was grow- 
ing feebler. Then stroking his hair, she said: 
“How near death he seems! I am going to kiss 
him for his mother.” And bending over him, she 
kissed the broad white forehead. He slowly opened 


1 68 COLONEL HUNGERFORD’s DAUGHTER 

his eyes, then asked in a faint voice: ‘‘Where am 
I?” 

“You are here with us,” said Helen. 

“And who are you?” 

“Helen and Mildred, your old schoolmates. Do 
370U know us?” 

“Yes, I thought I was at home again, and stand- 
ing by the bi^ook looking at its cool waters, and 
they would not let me drink. Where am I? Is 
mother here? What is the matter? You are all 
crying.” 

Helen’s voice choked and she turned away her 
face. 

“Tell me the truth,” he said; “am I dying?” 

“You are very sick,” said Mildred, brushing 
the tears from her face, “but you know what the 
psalm said that we used to repeat in the Sunday- 
school on the hill: ‘Thou shalt not be afraid for 
the terror by night, nor for the pestilence that 
walketh in darkness. He shall give His angels 
charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways.’” 

“Take me by the hand, then, for I seem to be 
sinking, sinking, I know not where.” His voice 
died away into a faint whisper. 

And they took his hands and held them while 
he dropped into a sleep which seemed to have more 
of rest in it, but whether it was the rest of death 
or of the “sweet restorer” they could not tell. For 


A DARK SHADOW FALLS OVER THEIR PATH 1 69 

an hour no word was spoken, but when the morn- 
ing light came through the window and fell upon 
his face, Helen looked earnestly into Mildred’s 
eyes and said: “I think he is a little better.” 

The doctor came, and laying his hand on his 
brow, said: “There is more of life here. He 
has met the crisis and passed it. By the best of 
nursing we may save him.” 

The noon train brought Mr. Stanvelt. He said 
that a tourist who came from Rome to Lake Como 
two days before had told him of Lindell’s sickness, 
and that he started for the city at once, but hardly 
expected to find him alive. 

For another week Helen and Mildred came and 
went, bringing flowers and cheering words, putting 
under his feeble life the strength and joy of their 
own buoyant life and resolute spirits. 

“You have more medfcine for this man than I 
have,” said the doctor ; “ he would have died if you 
had not held him up by your faith and courage.” 

Then Mr. Stanvelt took Lindell away to Lake 
Como to rest for a few days, and then on to Inter- 
lachen. He said the soft air of the Alps would 
soon do wonders for him,' and it did. He improved 
rapidly, and became quite himself again. 

“You had a narrow escape,” said Mr. Stanvelt 
one day as they reclined on the settees under the 
shade trees, looking up the opening at the Jung- 
frau. 


lyo COLONEL hungerford’s daughter 

“Yes, it came pretty near being: ‘See Ron: t 
and die.’” 

“The success of your young lady friends in nurs- 
ing you back into life has strengthened two theo- 
ries of mine.” 

“I thought you did not believe in theories.” 

“Well, I believe in these two theories, and more 
than ever now. One is that women would make 
good physicians. The healing art more naturally 
belongs to woman than to man. Man is the fighter, 
the destroyer; woman, the peacemaker, the healer, 
soothing in spirit, voice and manner. 

“The other theory is that it is not enough to give 
a sick man medicine. He has too many depart- 
ments in his nature, is- too great a creature, to be 
made well again by a little pinch of powder meas- 
ured on the point of a penknife or a little liquid 
dropped from a teaspoon. There is a sick mind 
and a sick heart and a sin-poisoned nature, and a 
whole series of functions which cannot be reached 
with a penknife or a teaspoon. A sick man needs 
to have a healing tide put into his complex system 
at all available points. Even great men, when 
death-stricken, have longed to be taken back to their 
mother’s home I think your young friends helped 
you by being home and mother to you. They put 
the bracing memory of childhood under your sink- 
ing courage. But with such young doctors hover- 
ing over you, I must confess that I should be afraid 


A DARK SHADOW FALLS OVER THEIR PATH I7I 

that while they were restoring bodily health they 
would wound the heart. 

Lindell made no reply to this observation, but 
looked so hard at the distant Jungfrau that his 
friend thought that he must be watching a tourist 
climbing its icy steeps. 

After a time, however, he said: “I have some- 
what changed my mind about some things since 
my experience at Rome. I once wrote to my 
mother that if a woman misses the right man in 
matrimony it costs everything, but that for a man 
it may be one girl or another and he goes on to 
success all the same. But I don’t know about that 
now. I should like to reserve my decision. But 
one thing is certain: Inasmuch as I did not die, I 
ought to think that there was an important reason 
why I should live.” 

‘‘So you had, and being a newspaper man with 
a gifted pen, you could easily make it worth while 
to live. For you newspaper men come nearer 
holding the helm of opinion than any other class 
of men. You sit on the top of the current and 
have all the world for an audience. We all take 
you with our breakfast every morning. The break- 
fast goes to the body, and the newspaper to the moral 
system. If our coffee was poisoned every morn- 
ing the race would soon be dead. If you put poison 
in the newpapers the race will soon be bad. You 
can do a world of good in the newspaper business, 
Mr. Norwin.” 


CHAPTER XVI. 


TOGETHER AGAIN AT PARIS. 

Two days after the departure of Lindell Norwin 
and Mr. Stanvelt from Rome, Helen Hungerford 
and Mildred Clingman were in Florence. Here 
they received letters from home which had awaited 
their arrival during the delay at Rome. 

‘‘One of my letters is from Jack,” said Mildred. 
“He is very mindful of his sister, and the same 
jolly boy that he has always been.” 

“He did not want to seem partial,” said Helen, 
“he has written me.” 

While Helen read the letter Mildred scanned 
her face curiously, for what the situation between 
them might be she did not know. She only knew 
that her brother had for some time been quite reti- 
cent on the subject. But Helen’s face gave no 
sign. When she had finished the letter she said: 
“He is a splendid letter- writer.” Then she lapsed 
into one of those reveries which her fond compan- 
ion had learned not to disturb. 

After two days spent in the great Ufizzi and 
Pitti galleries, they went to Venice, and then paid 
X72 


together again at PARIS 173 

a hurried visit to Vienna and Berlin. Early in 
September they reached Paris. Here they met 
their former party, and with them Mildred crossed 
the Channel to make a tour of England and Scot- 
land, and to sail from Queenstown for home late 
in October. 

In Paris Helen settled down to the study of 
French for a few months, making her home with 
her aunt, who had married a wealthy New Yorker, 
but who, with her family, was spending a year in 
the great capital. 

The Stanvelts and Lindell Norwin were also in 
Paris again, but expected to remain only a few 
days longer. They planned to spend a month in 
England and then take the same steamer which 
was to carrj" Mildred’s party. 

Lindell felt quite sure that Helen’s manner to 
him had undergone a marked change since the 
day she told him with a significant look that ships 
leaving the same port sailed far apart on the sea. 
She listened with a kindly interest to his future 
plans, and looked happy when his friends compli- 
mented him. 

But Mr. Stanvelt said to him one day: ‘‘Be 
cautious; more than one man has broken his neck 
trying to scale the high peaks of the Alps. That 
young woman walks the mountain tops. It is safer 
to watch her at a distance than to try to make 
yourself her right-hand man.” 


174 COLONEL HUNGERFORD’s DAUGHTER 

“But all writers,’’ said Lindell, “ soon learn that 
success in literature lies perilously near the edge 
where a man makes a fool of himself or gets hurt. 
The commonplace is safe, and the safe is nearly al- 
ways commonplace. It is the bold dash that brings 
applause. . Not to make a bold dash in literature, 
or out of it, is to be mediocre. I think it is so in 
other things. ‘Faint heart,’ you know. At all 
events, I shall soon be off to America and then 
an ocean will roll between us. I should like at least 
to have a cable connection.” 

“Well, make your dash. It won’t kill you, if 
you miss the mark. A man who has been through 
Roman fever ought to be able to stand anything.” 

“And a girl who has helped him out of the fever 
might be willing to help him out of the fire again.” 

“Yes, but some people will lend a hand but 
won’t lend a heart.” 

That evening Lindell made his dash. It was in 
the cozy little parlor of Helen’s new home, with 
none to molest or make him afraid, except the 
beautiful young woman, whose face had taken on 
just enough brown in her long rides over the Con- 
tinent to make her look doubly charming in his 
eyes. 

He took her back along memory’s path, and 
she talked so graciously of former days that it 
made the way easy for him. 


TOGETHER AGAIN AT PARIS 1 75 

“You said once,’’ he remarked, “that ships sail 
apart, but our ships come back to the same port. 
They sailed away from each other at the little 
schoolhouse on the hill, then met at sea. At 
Waterloo they parted again and came together at 
Rome. They then went their way and now are 
here in Paris. Is it because of magnetic attrac- 
tion?” 

“Not necessarily ; it may simply be a coincidence 
in plans. But speaking of ships; you would not 
like to put to sea in a leaking ship, would you?” 

“Certainly not.” 

“A man who drinks is a leaking ship. You 
never know how soon he will be half seas over, or 
go to the bottom. A woman is never safe in tak- 
ing passage with him. And when he is in a fog 
of skepticism, the danger is all the greater.” 

“But a man can drink a little and still be master 
of the ship.” 

“Perhaps; still I think it would be much safer 
to watch him experiment from the shore.” 

“What would you think if he stopped drinking?” 

“I should think he had done a very wise thing.” 

“Granted, Miss Hungerford, but I do not like 
reformers. They have such stiff notions about 
things, and if they do not become cranks they are 
always turning the one crank or riding a hobby. 
It becomes a kind of profession with them to think 


176 COLONEL HUNGERFORD^S DAUGHTER 

the world is going to wreck and ruin. If a hus- 
band stays out a minute after ten in the evening he 
is on the road to perdition, and if a young man 
looks toward a green blind, or touches a glass of 
wine with a friend, the devil has him by the nape 
of the neck and is marching him off to destruction. 
The}’^ like to put audiences of women and children 
into delirium tremens over awful stories, and to 
work themselves up into a fury about saloonkeep- 
ers, and about everybody else who does not agree 
with them. Certainly you must understand human 
nature well enough to know it is a pleasure to be 
a little bit malicious. It is a felicitous condition of 
life when people of a malicious disposition can 
vent their humor on another class of pe^rsons and 
be thought great reformers for doing it. Take 
away denunciation and half the temperance reform- 
ers would be out of a job. They would not know 
what to say or do. Some of them are forming such 
habits here that if they ever get to heaven and find 
everybody and everything good they will be mis- 
erable. There will be nothing to scold about and 
nothing to denounce, unless the Lord keeps some 
dummies there for them to practice on.” 

“There is not even a little bit of malice in that 
speech?” asked Helen with a laugh. 

“What if there is? We fellows that are always 
catching it like to snap back once in a while. 


together again at PARIS 1 77 

Ceitainly you will at least admit that most reform- 
ers run to hobbies.’’ 

“I shall not worry you or myself disputing it.” 

“First it is temperance, then prohibition, then a 
third party and then woman suffrage, and in the 
meantime the liquor-dealers go right on sawing 
wood, as the phrase is, but the temperance cause 
suffers.” 

“But there is one hobby worse than any of 
these.” 

“What is that?” 

“That of the girl who thinks that she can reform 
a young man by marrying him.” 

“If he reforms absolutely, will it be all right 
then?” 

“You seem to me to have a splendid prospect 
before you,” said Helen, “ if you will only stand by 
your mother’s principles. The mother’s instinct 
is wonderfully wise. It will be safer for you than 
the philosophy of the clubs.” 

Lindell observed that these last words were 
spoken with more seriousness than had marked the 
rest of her conversation. For throughout she 
seemed to be in the attitude of one who thought 
it to be a little game of banter on his side. 

“You don’t take me seriously enough,” he said. 

“I take 3^ou at your own estimate,” she replied. 
“You don’t take yourself seriously’, or the world, 


178 COI.ONEL HUNGERFORD’s DAUGHTER 

or anything. That is your philosophy of life.” 

“I take you seriously.” , 

“And so did I you, when your case was so 
serious.” 

“Helen, did you kiss me, when you thought I 
was dying at Rome?” 

“I believe I did, for your mother.” 

“Perhaps, if mother does not return it, I may 
have the pleasure some day of discharging the 
debt.” 

“There is no debt. Let us forget all about it.” 

Lindell knew what her manner meant, and rose 
to leave. * 

“I wish you much pleasure in these great months 
which are before you,” he said with a voice and 
manner as calm as usual, and then they parted. 

Mildred’s romantic letter. 

During the holidays Helen received a letter from 
Mildred Clingman which contained a surprise. 
“I have news to tell you,” she wrote. “Lindell 
Norwin and myself are to be married in February. 
You know that I always liked him. After watch- 
ing with him at Rome I loved him. But I thought 
he preferred you and I loved you so dearly myself 
that I could hardly feel jealous. We met in Eng- 
land, and on the passage home were thrown much 
together. I lost rriy heart completely, and when 


TOGETHER AGAIN AT PARIS 1 79 

we reached the shore I had made the great prom- 
ise that fixes fate. It was on the last evening at 
sea that he spoke his word of love. The sea was 
overhung with fog, and the ship was feeling its 
way cautiously, with the captain and the pilot on 
the bridge peering into the heavy mist. The whis- 
tle was regularly sounding its warning cry, and 
over the water came the deep tones of a cannon 
which some ship was firing. 

“As I listened to the warning sounds through 
the night, a slight chill of misgiving passed over 
me. I thought, ‘What if these warnings are for 
me, signals of danger on my new sea?”’ 

“I hope not,”' said Helen with emotion, as she 
read this. “So sweet and loving a girl deserves 
to sail on a sunny sea.” 

In the same mail came a letter from John Cling- 
man. He said that he had had his first few days 
of congressional life, and was not sure whether he 
would like it or not. His law practice, he added, 
had become so lucrative that he felt very reluctant 
to give it up for the privilege of being a foot-ball 
to be kicked at by political enemies, soreheads and 
cranks. 

“But do give me your impressions of the French 
people and their republic,” he said at the close. 

And so she wrote: “If I had been here but a 
week I should know all about the French people 


l8o COLONEL HUNGERFORd’s DAUGHTER 

and could write a treatise. But having been in the 
city nearlj’ four months, I find my knowledge 
shrinking. I no longer feel quite so sure of every- 
thing. To express strong opinions, one needs to 
fire them off quickly. 

‘‘But of one thing I feel quite sure, and that is, 
that Paris is wonderfully beautiful. When an 
American college girl comes to Paris she begins 
to realize the error of having exhausted all the 
best aesthetic terms on small things. She has no 
words to express her admiration of the beauty of 
the city. If she has called a little five-cent fan 
perfectly lovely, what is she going to say when she 
takes a ride through the boulevards of Paris? 

“The French waiters can fold a napkin around 
a biscuit so artistically as to make it look as pretty 
as a bouquet, and when it comes to the masonry 
and marble of palaces, the fountains, flowers and 
foliage of parks, and the color and carving of 
painting and statuarj^ with great schools of art 
and untold millions of money to make it all won- 
derful, what language can express it? 

“But the beauty has its background of unpleas- 
ant memory. Wherever one looks, the shadow of 
tragedy falls over the picture. At Versailles I 
look at the palaces and the paintings, the silk- 
covered walls and the floors smooth and glittering 
like mirrors, and wish that there were no blood- 


TOGETHER AGAIN AT PARIS l8l 

stains on its history to mar the beaut3\ To be told 
that the Grand Monarch scraped the flesh from 
the bones to build the palace, makes it all seem a 
little dismal. When I looked at the window where 
Queen Antoinette held the little prince before the 
enraged mob, I paid her memory the tribute of an 
unbidden tear. When I looked at the bed on 
which Louis XIV. folded his hands across his 
breast and died in peace, I thought what a strange 
distribution of justice it was that he should impover- 
ish France and his posterity pay the penalty. 
But so it is. One generation of evil-doers is always 
pouring hot coals from their windows to fall on the 
heads of another generation. 

“If I were to give an off-hand opinion of the 
French people, it would be that they sow one thing 
and tr^’ to reap another. They sow to no great con- 
victions, and yet try to reap freedom and justice, 
results which come only from great convictions. 
They shout Fraternity and Equality. And yet these 
are the greatest things of humanity, and can grow 
only in its deepest soil, and when watered by holy 
baptisms. But they think they can have such con- 
summations by scratching the surface and talking a 
little sentiment. And yet, in this we Americans 
may be imitating them. We talk not a little as if 
we could throw away Puritan principles and still 
keep Puritan virtues. 


1 82 COLONEL HUNGERFORd’s DAUGHTER 

“In my opinion there is but one safe motto: ‘If 
you like the fruit, do not cut down the tree.’ The 
devil’s masterpiece is to make mankind believe 
that they can have the fruit without the tree. 

“Sometimes I think the great apostasy, which 
the New Testament speaks of, will be the attempt 
of civilization to retain the virtues of Christianity 
while throwing away Christianity itself. When 
this has been tried, and disaster and desolation 
have swept over Christendom, then the world will 
pick itself up out of the dust, never, it is to be hoped, 
to make the attempt again, but to go on to the mil- 
lennium.” 

In January Helen went with her aunt’s family 
to the Riviera, and later joined an American tour- 
ist party and made the round of the Mediterranean 
ports. After a little trip up the Nile and a short 
visit to Jerusalem, they returned from Constanti- 
nople by rail to Paris, which they reached in May. 


CHAPTER XVII. 


SAMMY SUDDENDROP’S SWEETHEART. 

For some two weeks Mrs. Hungerford had no- 
ticed that there was something on Sammy Sudden- 
drop’s mind. His frequent absence during the long 
evenings did not disturb her, for there was a round 
of holiday festivities and country singing schools 
and parties. But he was silent at the table, was 
often in a “brown study” and frequently lingered 
about as if there was something which he wanted 
to tell her. 

Finally she said to him one evening, when the 
colonel was absent at a meeting of the Grand 
Army Post: “Sammy, there is something on your 
mind.” 

“Yes, ma’am,” he replied, after fidgeting until 
he had nearly slipped off the chair, “and it’s the 
biggest thing that was ever on my mind.” 

“Well, what is it?” 

“I want to get married.” 

“Get married I It is on your heart, then, as Well 
as on your mind.” 

“Yes, Mrs. Hungerford, it’s all over me. I’ve 
183 


184 COLONEL HUNGERFORD^S DAUGHTER 

got it bad, and I’ve wanted to tell you about it for 
a good while. 

‘‘You are my only mother, and I know you 
won’t be hard on me. Besides, I thought that if 
you liked me so well you might think that two 
Suddendrops would be twice as good as one.” 

“That would depend upon who she is. Who is 
she?” 

“Sadie McNeil.” 

“Sammy and Sadie, that would be a good pair 
of names; and she is Scotch and I believe in Scotch 
stock. But how did you get on such good terms 
with Squire McNeil’s daughter?” 

“It all happened itself. She kept eying me, 
and I eyed her. Then I cut a nice little poem out 
of the paper one day and mailed it to her, but did 
not write a word. The next day I got a poem back 
in the same way. There was not a line, but I 
studied the handwriting on the envelope and located 
it. Then at the Sunday-school picnic she came 
up and pinned a little bunch of wild violets on my 
coat. I was the biggest fellow in the woods the 
rest of the day. I pushed the swing for her an 
hour and didn’t mind it, and my feet hardly touched 
the ground. For a week afterwards I didn’t get 
mad even at that big mule team which I’ve been 
wanting the colonel to sell for a year. 

“But you remember that evening that I came 


SAMMY SUDDENDROP’S SWEETHEART 1 85 

home from the creek with my clothes all wet? 
Well, that afternoon when I was sitting on the 
bank fishing, who should come down on the other 
side of the creek but Sadie McNeil — their house 
is a quarter of a mile above. She was singing ‘If 
a body kiss a body, need a body cry?’ and she did 
not seem to see me. She started to walk across 
the foot-log, but when she got to the middle of it, 
she tumbled in with a scream. I didn’t wait to 
pull off my boots or anything, but was in after her 
in a flash. I got hold of her around the waist and 
she got me around the neck, and I soon had her 
landed on her side of the creek. I wiped the water 
out of her face and she thanked me with all her 
might, and hurried off home. I think I told you, 
when I came home with my wet clothes, that I 
jumped into the water after a fish. That story was 
a little fishy, but I thought it was all right, for I 
meant that it was a kind of a mermaid. Anyhow, 
it was the biggest fish that I ever pulled out of that 
creek. I felt like a hero, big enough for a novel, 
and that this was a romance of the first water. I 
was sure that it would wind up in matrimony.” 

“How deep was the water where Sadie fell in?” 

“Oh, it was only about knee-deep. I took that 
all in afterwards. I got to thinking about it in the 
night, and I remembered that the poem which 
Sadie sent me told about a lover plunging into 


I 76 COLONEL HUNGERFORd’s DAUGHTER 

the surf at a summer resort, and saving a young 
lieiress and marrying her. And it came over me 
that Sadie had made up her mind that that thing 
could be done in this neck of the woods as well as 
down at Long Branch, that it was just as easy as 
falling off a log. I guess girls are the same every- 
where. Sadie knew that the water was not very 
deep there, and she was laughing a little when I 
wiped the water from her face. But I thought that 
if she liked me well enough to fall into the water 
to get me to help her out, it was a bigger demon- 
stration than if it had happened by accident. Any- 
how, it made plain sailing for both of us, and now 
she is my Sadie and I am her Sammy.” 

“But you are too young to marry, Sammy; you 
will not be twenty-one until next summer.” 

“That’s so, but I want to get it all fixed up, and 
have it come off about Christmas. It would be so 
nice to watch the young turke3^s growing up for a 
big wedding dinner, and how nice it will be to go 
around here all summer with people looking at me 
and saying, ‘He is going to marry Squire Mc- 
Neil’s daughter!’” 

“Between you and the turkeys there would be a 
good deal of strutting around here for a great oc- 
casion, wouldn’t there?” 

“I suppose so; but then ever^^body ought to 
have one little chance to strut across the stage, 
with their neighbors for an audience.” 


sAmmy suddendrop’s sweetheart 187 

“Very true. Still I think you are too young 
to be thinking about marrying.” 

“Perhaps I am, but I notice that the fellows that 
wait so long and go with this girl and then with 
that one, generally wind up by taking the poorest 
one in the lot. Your awfully wise young man who 
is never going to make a mistake, lets his heart 
get cold and hard, and it don’t draw towards his 
affinity. I’ll let my heart out while it’s tender and 
in good working order.” 

“You must have read that in a book, Sammy. 
I don’t think you thought it out when you were 
fishing.” 

“Yes, I guess I did read it. For I’ve read 
everything I could find on the subject the last three 
months. I even wrote to Congressman Clingman 
to send me a copy of his maiden speech. And one 
thing certain is that the more I read the more I 
got struck on Sadie.” 

Mrs. Hungerford laughed at the sly joke about 
the maiden speech. She told Sammy she would 
talk the matter over with the colonel, but that 
Squire McNeil was likely to have more to say 
about it than anybody. 

“He could say it all, and it wouldn’t cost an}^- 
thing for a minister,” said Sammy, as he left the 
room and whistled “Annie Laurie” on the way 
upstairs. 


]88 COLONEL HUNGERFORd's DAUGHTER 
HE WOULD BE A DETECTIVE. 

When Mrs. Hungerford laid Samm}^ Sudden- 
drop’s case before her husband after his return, he 
said that it was not the only thing on the boy’s 
mind. He told her that Sammy was possessed of 
the idea of going to Chicago to learn to be a de- 
tective. Ever since he sent him to Millersburg to 
watch the man from New York he had been read- 
ing detective stories and talking about the busi- 
ness. 

“Now he has become restless,” continued the 
colonel, “and wants to leave the farm. It is the 
way with farmer boys. They get tired of follow- 
ing up and down corn rows, of laying up fences 
when they blow down, and trimming hedges. 
The}^ read the papers, hear the locomotive whistle, 
and want to take the train and get away into the 
world, 

“Perhaps it is just as well. For the more 
machinery we get, the fewer boys we need. For one 
machine that comes, two boys go. The country 
gets the self-binder, and the cities get the boys. 
It does not seem like a good trade — happy, laugh- 
ing boys for rattling cogwheels and sulky-plows. 
But this is in an age for machinery, and what else 
can we do?” 

“That is a seiious question, but it is general,” 
said Mrs. Hungerford. “Ours is a particular ques- 
tion. What will we do with Sammy?” 


SAMMY SUDDENDROP’S SWEETHEART 1 89 

“Why not let him go to the city and learn to be 
a detective, with the agreement that he is not to 
talk any more about marrying for at least two 
years?” 

“I don’t like the business.” 

“Neither do I, but Sammy Suddendrop does, 
and he ought to have more to say about it than 
either of us.” 

The next evening Mrs. Hungerford said to 
Sammy: “I bought you a pretty necktie this after- 
noon. I thought from what you told me last even- 
ing that a handsome necktie was a matter of im- 
portance to you just now.” 

“Yes,” said Sammy, with a laugh, “I’ll dazzle 
the crowd with that to-night.” 

“But what is this, Samm}’, about your wanting 
to go to Chicago to be a detective?” 

“It’s so, I do. That’s where the good detect- 
ives are, and there are lots of things there to de- 
tect.” 

“I should think so, from the stealing of streets 
to shoplifting, and from aldermen to sneak-thieves. 
But why do you want to be a detective?” 

“Because it’s my nature, I suppose. It’s the 
nature of a hound to run a fox to his hole, and 
when I hear Bluff and Blow baying along the 
track of game down there in the woods, I think 
that’s what I would like to do with those gunning 


ipo COLONEL HUNGERFORD’s DAUGHTER 

rascals who work in the dark. I would like to 
chase them to their holes. If I ever get on the 
track of that rascal from New York I’ll give him 
a lively chase.” 

‘‘But what about Sadie?” 

“ Oh, we could fix that up. We can wait a while. 
If I took on some city airs, she would like me all 
the better.” 

“She might be afraid of losing you in a city full 
of pretty girls.” 

“Not much. It is Sadie and Sammy forever. 
I told her so and she believes it.” 

“Of course she does. What girl wouldn’t be- 
lieve a young man who had saved her from drown- 
ing in the raging waters of Willow Creek? 

“But then, in your absence some other young 
man might drive his cutter up to Squire McNeil’s 
gate and take Sadie away to singing school, and 
in a little while — ” 

“No, Sadie’s Scotch and the Scotch stick. And 
then I would fire the letters in on her thick and 
fast.” 

“Well, Sammy, if you have your heart set on 
going to Chicago I think it can be arranged, but 
you are not to marry for two years?” 

“No.” 

An hour later Sammy Suddendrop had taken 
Sadie McNeil into a cutter drawn by a spirited 


SAMMY SUDDENDROP’S SWEETHEART 


pair of young black horses, and as they dashed 
over the Long Ridge road, snugly tucked away 
under buffalo robes, he told her that he was going 
to Chicago and would be gone a good while, but 
not without coming to see her now and then. 

The winds whistled hard through the high hedge, 
and what more he said or she said nobody heard. 
But a week later Mrs. Hungerford kissed Sammy 
good-bye with the tears in her eyes, and Colonel 
Hungerford drove him down to the station, and he 
was off to Chicago. 

“A pet lamb or a pet dog becomes dear to one,*’ 
said Mrs. Hungerford, when the young man dis- 
appeared down the road; “but a pet boy, taken 
from the arms of a dying mother — what can be 
dearer except one’s own flesh and blood?” 

And then she went to her room, and did not 
come out for a long time. 

In February there was a grand wedding at Cap- 
tain Clingman’s. The captain was rich and he 
spared no expense to make the marriage between 
his eldest daughter and the New York journalist the 
greatest event that the county had seen for many 
a day. Mildred was a young ladj^ of much pop- 
ularity, and her numerous friends and the extensive 
connections of the family filled the great country- 
house to overflowing. Mr. Stanvelt came from 
New York to act as best man for Lindell Norwin, 


COLONEL HUNGERFORD’s DAUGHTER 


and John Clingman returned from Washington 
bringing with him a young congressman who was 
in his regiment at Franklin. 

Mrs. Norwin looked radiantly happy as she 
moved through the great company of guests, not- 
withstanding the fact that her most intimate friends 
had believed her disappointed when she learned 
that it was not to be Colonel Hungerford’s daugh- 
ter. 

“Any mother ought to be proud to have such a 
daughter-in-law as Mildred,” she said to Lindell, 
when they talked the matter over on the first even- 
ing of his arrival. “She is such a splendid young 
woman, and it was so brave in both of them to stay 
with you in Rome.” 

And Mr. Stanvelt remarked on the way out: 
“You have made a fine choice. She is practical 
as well as beautiful. Highly as I think of Miss 
Hungerford, she seems a little too ideal. Her 
splendid conception of things quite dazzles one in 
conversation. But we cannot always live on the 
mountain tops. Most of life is mere trudging on 
common roads, and I don’t know how she will get 
along when it comes to the wear and tear of the 
commonplace.” 

Many of Lindell Norwin’s friends and neigh- 
bors had hardly seen him since he went away to 
college, and there was a murmur of admiration as 


SAMMY SUDDENDROP’S SWEETHEART I93 

the handsome couple stepped under the arch of 
smilax and roses to make the irrevocable vows. 

•‘We have given her to you for better or'worse,” 
said Mildred’s mother as she clasped Lindell’s 
hand; “ma}' it always be for better.” 

“They have given you one of the most beautiful 
and dearest of daughters,” said his mother; “may 
you make her one of the happiest wives.” 

The next morning Daisy said: “I don’t know 
wh}^ the winds moaned so piteously in the trees 
last night. It made me feel bad for Mildred.” 

“The old trees are sighing over her departure,” 
said her father. “For every summer since she 
was a bab}^ and threw her little arms up in glee 
when she saw their branches waving above her, 
the old trees have watched her come and go.” 

“I wonder if the trees smile and laugh and sigh 
and w'eep,” said Daisy, “when they see babies 
grow and marry and die and sleep.” 

“I always have a sense of the pathos of life,” 
replied her father, “when I see a tree greeting the 
fresh winds of spring and putting out its leaves, 
long after the man that planted it is in his grave.” 

But Mildred, undisturbed by sighing shade trees 
or Daisy’s little fit of melancholy, and one of the 
happiest of brides, was far away on the train, flying 
to the flowers and soft winds of the South. 


CHAPTER XVIII. 


MRS. HUNGERFORD’s SAD DREAM. 

‘‘Do you believe in presentiments, or dreams?” 
asked Mrs. Hungerford of her husband as they 
drove home from church together on a Sunday in 
May. 

“I have never had dreams which troubled me 
enough to make me think about them. But accord- 
ing to the Scripture lesson this morning Pilate's 
wife was wiser in her dreams than Pilate was with 
both eyes open on the judgment seat.” 

“I have never paid uny attention to dreams 
either, but two nights ago I had one which troubled 
me and does not go away. When I heard the Scrip- 
ture lesson this morning it disturbed me more than 
ever. 

“I dreamt that we were sitting together on the por- 
tico in the dusk of the evening, and while you were 
talking to me about the trouble with the miners, 
Elwood came out of the shadows and approaclied 
us with the old smile on his face, but when I turned 
to clasp him in my arms he went away, and you 
went away with him. 


194 


Mrs. hungerford’s sad dream 195 

‘‘I called to you, but you did not answer. For 
hours I sat and waited for you, but you did not 
come.” 

“Dreams are echoes of the day. The trouble 
brewing at the mines disturbed your sleep. It does 
mine at least. For matters get worse instead of 
better. That’s something real, not a dream.” 

“Dropping the dream, then, what is the matter 
w'ith the miners? Are not our men satisfied?” 

“Satisfied? As the old colored woman said, 
that is a long, deep word. Nobody is satisfied. If a 
farmer has one farm he wants two; if a lawyer is 
making five thousand a year, he wants to make ten 
or go to Congress. If he gets into the House, he 
wants to go to the Senate, then he sets himself up 
for a favorite son and wants to be made president. 
If a physician has patients enough to keep him 
busy all day, he wants enough more to keep him 
up all night. When a merchant makes a million, 
he wants two million ; and when a multi-millionaire 
gets a big corner of the earth, then his daughter 
wants a titled husband. And so it goes. Even the 
ministers have it. The pastor of a country cross- 
roads church wants a church in town; In town 
he wants a church in the city, and if his salary is 
two thousand he wants five thousand. But they 
preach patience and contentment to the rest of us. 
It would be amusing if it were not something else. 


196 COLONEL HUNGERFORd’s DAUGHTER 

to hear a man at five thousand a year preaching 
contentment to men working for a dollar a day.” 

“But don’t we give our men as good wages as 
others, and treat them nicel}^?” 

“Yes, but the doctrine of equality which this 
country started out with in the Declaration of In- 
dependence is a hard doctrine to get along with. 
Nothing sounds nicer in a political creed, and 
nothing is more provoking in practice. We pro- 
claim it at the top of our voices on the Fourth of 
July and fight it all the rest of the year. 

“Once we thought that equality meant a chance 
for all to run in the race, or fight in the battle. 
But now there is a growing class who say that this 
only means that the race is to the swift, and the 
battle to the strong, that equality must be a more 
equal division of the products of labor. A scram- 
ble in which the strong get millions, and the weak 
a crust of bread, is heathenism or worse, not Chris- 
tian equality. 

“Suppose that we tell our men that we are giv- 
ing them fair wages; they reply; ‘But you send 
your daughters to Europe and ours have to hire 
out as servants in the kitchen. Why don’t you 
get along with a little less, and give us a little 
more?’ 

“And why don’t we? That is the question that 
my conscience often asks me. Why should our 


MRS. HUNGERFORD’s SAD DREAM 1 97 

daughter and Clingman’s daughter have every ad-, 
vantage, and the daughters of the man that digs 
the coal that helps to pay the bills have no advan- 
tages? Perhaps you can answer the question, but 
I give it up.” 

“But these men drink and carouse and waste 
their means.” 

“I know that. All the changes have been rung 
on that argument, and it gives me considerable 
comfort when my conscience troubles me. But the 
workmen themselves cooly ignore that fact, or say 
that drinking is an effect of poverty, not a cause — 
an argument which must be highly satisfactory to 
the devil; and many of them reason as if the)" 
thought there should be a condition of affairs in this 
world which would permit a man to spend his 
wages in the saloon and at the same time put pic- 
tures and carpets in his house.” 

“But what is the bottom of this trouble at the 
mines?” 

“A cheaper man, the bottom of all labor troub- 
les. The man who is above the laboring man could 
never lower his wages, if it was not for the man 
who is below him and cuts underneath, I mean 
underbids him. It is this cheaper man who is 
lowering wages in America. First, it was the 
Irishman, who could live in a shanty, and the 
American wanted a nice cottage. Then it was the 


198 COLONEL HUNGERFORD’s DAUGHTER 

Bohemian, whose wife and children gathered up a 
living for the family. Now it is the Hun and the 
Italian, who can live on refuse, and consequently 
work for lower wages than anybody above them. 

“And below them is all China. The possibilities 
of low wages seem bottomless. We have built 
walls to shut out cheap goods, but cheap labor 
slips in. 

“Our trouble is just this; some Italians came 
along, and Clingman and Culverwell insisted on 
hiring a few of them at lower wages. They did 
not lower the wages of the other men, but they 
have struck because they say that if the}^ don’t 
make a stand now they will be dropped one by one 
and the cheaper men slipped in. Our superintend- 
ent did not take any of the Italians, but our men 
are in the dumps because they see that I cannot 
long run a mine at higher wages than my neigh- 
bors. 

“I have urged Clingman and Culverwell and 
the other operators to discharge the men and end 
the trouble, but they say that competition is close, 
that cheap labor is coming in everywhere, and 
we will all soon be shut out of the general market 
if we don’t take time by the forelock. It is hard 
to fight a system of things. A man in business 
these days is like a cog in a wheel, he cannot do 
much more than go around with the machine. I 


MRS. HUNGERFORD’s SAD DREAM 


199 


should like to strike myself, strike against this 
awful human machine called the business world, 
and run our mines on the same principles that we 
raise corn. The farmer is about the only man who 
has any independence, and bethinks that he is the 
worst abused man in the world. 

“But I dread to-morrow. Miners always seem 
to be worse after Sunday.” 

“Just as other people are who go to saloons in- 
stead of to church.” 

A MINING HORROR. 

At sunrise the next morning Colonel Hunger- 
ford mounted his horse and rode rapidly away to 
his mines, which were on Coal Creek, three miles 
distant. When he reached the works he found 
them deserted. The few women and children that 
were left told him that there was great excite- 
ment at CulverwelTs mine across the creek. Turn- 
ing his horse in that direction, he galloped through 
the bottom and across the bridge, where he met his 
superintendent. The latter told him that in a con- 
ference on Sunday afternoon .his men refused to 
go on with the strike on the ground that he had 
not hired any of the cheaper men, and that they 
ought to stand by him. He said Culverwell had 
persuaded half of his men to begin work again, 
but the other half threatened serious trouble if they 


200 COLONEL HUNGERFORD’s DAUGHTER 

did. More Italians had come in on Saturday, and 
they were behaving verj" ugly towards him because 
he refused to employ Italians At four o’clock in 
the morning a half-dozen of Culverwell’s men had 
gone down the lower shaft and begun work. But 
at five there was a terrific explosion, which set the 
shaft on fire, and the men, if not killed or suffo- 
cated, were imprisoned below. He thought the 
explosives were put there during the night, but by 
whom, or how they were started, he did not know. 
Colonel Hungerford hurried on and was soon in 
the midst of the excited throng around the burning 
shaft. All the miners and farmers in the neigh- 
borhood were there, and Culverwell had just 
jumped from his foaming horse. The wives of the 
men below were pleading piteously with him to 
try to save their husbands. 

“I am awful glad you have come. Colonel,” said 
Culverwell. “What shall we do?” 

“There is only one thing to do, and that is go 
down the upper shaft and dig through to save the 
men, if alive.” 

“But it is very dangerous,” cried a half-dozen 
voices. “Nobody has been down that shaft for 
six months.” 

“Who will volunteer to go down the old shaft?” 
shouted Culverwell. 

“It has gas in it, and caved in on the last man 


MRS. HUNGERFORD’s SAD DREAM 


201 


that ever was at the bottom of it,’’ was the only 
reply. 

“Tom,” said Colonel Hungerford, “we have 
faced fire and smoke together before, and are not 
afraid of danger where there is a duty to be done. 
We will go down. Rig up the windlass, men, and 
get your picks and shovels ready for business.” 

Colonel Hungerford was a man for an emergen- 
cy, a leader whom a crowd always obeyed when 
his voice rang out in command. And the men fell 
to with alacrity, but with the hardest work it was 
an hour before everything was ready. Then, after 
putting his own most trusty men at the ropes to 
stand guard around the shaft, Colonel Hungerford 
stepped into the lift and Culverwell followed. 

“Lower away slowly,” he said. “One stroke 
on the rope will mean that we are all right, two 
will mean to draw us up quickly.” And they be- 
gan to descend. 

The crowd became hushed, the weeping women 
brushing away their tears and peering down the 
dark shaft. The two men seemed to the breath- 
less throng to be gone an age, but the signal of 
one stroke came regularly. 

“It would be awful to lose Colonel Hungerford 
in this trap,” said one of the men. An Italian 
scowled. Then came two strokes, and the men fell 
to and pulled the lift rapidly to the top. There 


202 COLONEL HUNGERFORd’s DAUGHTER 

was a wild shout, and the crowd pressed close up 
to the shaft. 

“We think the men may be alive,” said Colonel 
Hungerford. “We thought we could hear a strik- 
ing on the wall. We must dig through it.” 

This announcement was greeted with tremen- 
dous cheers. The colonel continued: 

“We can work in the shaft for half an hour at 
a time, in relays of six. Get yourselves in line 
and be ready when your turn comes. Not a min- 
ute must be lost until we have our fellow men out 
of danger. Mr. Culverwell and myself will go 
down with the first relay.” 

“We are with you,” shouted the men. And 
three at a time the first relay went down. For 
hours the work went on, the men digging fiercely 
into the thick seam of coal and rock which sepa- 
rated them from the chamber or shaft into which 
the unfortunate miners were supposed to have re- 
treated. 

At noon Mrs. Hungerford drove up rapidly, and 
springing from the carriage, asked eagerly for her 
husband. 

“He is all right, he is all right,” the men 
shouted as eagerly, “and a brave man he is.” 

And then the distressed wives caught her in 
their arms and kissed her. A few minutes later 
the colonel stepped from the lift so begrimed with 


MRS. HUNGERFORd’s SAD DREAM 203 

coal dust that Mrs. Hungerford hardly knew him. 
She smiled through her tears, and Tom Culver- 
well said that he never saw him look that hard 
after an all-day march on a dusty road or after a 
battle. 

*' “We won’t let you go down any more,” said a 
stalwart miner. “ I’ll take his turn.” A dozen more 
shouted the same thing. And the colonel let his 
wife wipe the dust from his face and then sat down 
with her to watch proceedings. 

When the sun was setting he said to her: 

“You must go home now. Everything is going 
well, and if the men are alive we shall have them 
out and their wives laughing and crying over them 
by midnight.” 

Mrs. Hungerford drove away, but came back to 
the outer edge of the works and beckoned to her 
husband. 

“I feel very strange about leaving you. You 
will be very careful, won’t you?” 

“As careful as I can be and save the men.” 

“You are so noble. I shall go, but kiss me 
again.” 

He kissed her. It was the last time. 

The relay which came up at ten o’clock report- 
ed that they could easily hear the men digging on 
the other side. At twelve o’clock they were al- 
most through the wall, and an hour later they 


204 COLONEL HUNGERFORD’s DAUGHTER 

brought up two of the men. The miners instantly 
caught them up and carried them out of the crowd 
into the fresh air. Then two more were brought 
up, but the other two could not be found. 

After half an hour’s fruitless search, Colonel 
Hungerford and Culverwell went down to assist 
the men. They found the two miners in a stupe- 
fied condition, put them upon the lift and sent them 
up with the other two men. 

There was a deafening shout as these last two 
appeared. 

It was now two o’clock in the morning, and 
there was nothing to do but lower the lift and 
bring up the two heroic men. 

The lift was nearing the top of the shaft, a strand 
of the rope parted, then another, and in an instant 
the lift went crashing down the dark depths of the 
shaft to the bottom, two hundred feet below. There 
was a cry of horror. Strong men grew sick and 
faint and turned away. The women who had 
watched around the shaft all day shrieked and 
clasped their hands in wild agony. Captain Cling- 
man attempted to give directions, but his voice 
choked, and he staggered into the arms of one of 
the miners. 

But Colonel Hungerford’s superintendent caught 
up a crowbar, fastened a rope around it, and seat- 
ing himself upon it, went quickly down the shaft. 


Mrs. hungerford’s sad dream 205 

A few minutes later he struck the rope and they 
drew it up. It bore the lifeless and broken body 
of Colonel Hungerford. When they lowered it 
again, it brought up the remains of Culverwell. 

The awe-stricken multitude stood uncovered and 
silent while a few strong men carried the bodies 
to a neighboring cottage. One of the women, 
whose husband had been rescued, cried out in 
agony: ‘‘Oh, the poor lady! the poor lady! My 
husband is saved and hers is gone.” 

A moment later there was a cry of anger, then 
a shout for vengeance. 

“The Italians cut the strands of the rope,” cried 
the Hungerford miners. “Catch them! Hang 
them!” 

But the superintendent and Captain Clingman 
threw themselves in front of the infuriated men 
and besought them not to add further horror to the 
night by such a deed of violence, when they had 
no proof of anything more than an accident. The 
Italians quickly disappeared in the darkness. 

But who put the explosives in the mine, or 
whether the parting of the rope was purely an ac- 
cident or not, was never known. 

When one of the neighbors, who had been se- 
lected as the wisest and best man to break the news 
gently to Mrs. Hungerford, approached the house 
an hour after the fatal accident, he saw a light in 


2o6 colonel hungerford*s daughter 

the parlor window and Mrs. Hungerford pacing 
the floor. She met him at the door, looked at his 
blanched face and saw him trying in vain to speak. 
She staggered back and sank into a chair. He 
tried again to speak, but the pallor on her face and 
her agony unnerved him still more. “You need not 
say anything,'’ she said in a hoarse whisper, “I 
know that you can only tell me the worst. My 
dream was true.” 

And thus Colonel Hungerford and Lieutenant 
Culverwell, whose lives were so strangely con- 
nected, died together. In deeds of bravery they 
were side by side, in character they were separated 
by a great gulf. 


CHAPTER XIX. 


HELEN TAKES HOLD OF BUSINESS. 

The cablegram announcing the d^ath of her 
father did not reach Helen until ten days after the 
sad calamity. It was directed to her address in 
London, but she had left two days before for Ox- 
ford, Leamington, and Warwick Castle. The sad 
message was handed to her on her return to her 
hotel at Leamington, after a visit to Stratford-on- 
the-Avon. Cabling a reply to her mother, she 
hurried to Liverpool and took the next steamer for 
home. When the vessel swung alongside the dock 
at New York, Mrs. Mildred Norwin met her with 
letters and a telegram from her mother. 

“I shall take you right home with me for the 
rest of the day,” she said, “for the fast train does 
not leave until ten to-night. Lindell will spend 
the evening with us.” 

“You have a beautiful home,” said Helen, after 
she had been shown through the apartments; “you 
must be very happy.” 

“I ought to be, with a successful and indulgent 
husband. But the daily newspaper business is so 
207 


2o8 colonel hungerford’s daughter 


relentless, I never seem to have my husband in the 
evening.” 

Helen was too much overwhelmed by her great 
grief to see what was passing in the minds of 
others, but it could not escape her notice that a 
slight shadow rested upon the spirits of her dearly 
loved Mildred. 

As the train neared Millersburg Helen felt that 
quickening pulse-beat which stirs the blood of the 
one who has wandered over sea and distant lands 
and at last begins to measure the little remaining 
space between self and home and loved ones by 
the strokes of the fast flying wheels. The heart 
beats faster and faster as the last field is crossed, 
the last curve rounded, the edge of the town 
reached, and the whistle sounds, the brakes stop 
the wheels, and the full stop comes. The journey 
amid waves and storms and strange people is over, 
and you are face to face with those dearest to you 
on earth. Such a moment is like a new morning 
to the heart. 

But there was one whom Helen could not meet. 
He had gone over the sea which is never recrossed, 
and the silence of eternity had come between them. 
It was a great cloud and darkness where for months 
anticipation pictured joy and gladness. 

But in the home was the mother, with deeper 
lines and traces of a great grief in her face, and 


HELEN TAKES HOLD OF BUSINESS 


yet resolute to be a shield and comfort to her sob- 
bing child. 

For days they struggled together, with words 
and looks and kindly ministrations, to rise above 
the great calamity and to adjust their hearts to the 
sore trial. 

At length Helen said: 

‘‘There is in death a stroke of calamity which 
we cannot reason away. The shadow falls, the 
earth opens and closes, and they are gone. No 
words that we can speak or thoughts that we can 
think will ever satisfy all the hunger that we feel 
when we think of the place which they have left 
voiceless, formless, empty. ‘The last enemy that 
shall be destroyed is death.’ Until that last day 
he will bruise all hearts and bruise them sorely. 

“But our beloved dead was noble in life. He 
has left us a name crowned with honor. The flowers 
which the multitude heaped upon his grave are 
withering, but in the hearts of the givers his mem- 
ory cannot wither. He stood in his place and did 
his work w’ith the fidelity and the earnestness of a 
royal manhood. 

“I cannot stand in the thick of battle as he 
stood, or have the voice in public affairs which he 
had, but I can do some of the commonplace duties 
of the farm and the mines to which he gave him- 
self so patiently and faithfully. I want you to let 


210 COLONEL HUNGERFORD’s DAUGHTER 

me take up his work here. It will help us both to 
bear our sorrow.” 

“He was a man, and you are still a ver}^ young 
woman, but do whatever you wish, my child.” 

This was the mother’s only word, and Helen 
Hungerford was soon busy with the affairs of the 
farm and the mines. In the morning she went 
over the fields or remained in the library; and 
every afternoon she drove or rode to the works on 
Coal Creek, Here she gave a part of her time to 
business with the superintendent, and the rest to the 
families of the miners. She went from house to 
house encouraging the miners, she formed a sew- 
ing school for their girls, an improvement club for 
the young people, a band of hope for the children 
and a Sunday-school for all. When one of the 
women who lived in a wretched little house told 
her that drink was the trouble, she vowed in her 
heart that the drink habit would have to get out 
of Coal Creek some day, but said nothing. 

After a long interview with Captain Clingman, 
which was somewhat stormy on his part, and very 
determined on her part, though her words were 
spoken in the rich, soft tones which gave so much 
charm to all her conversation, it was agreed that the 
Italians who had caused the great calamity should 
receive the same wages as the others, and that the 
wages of all should be raised ten per cent after the 
holidays. 


HELEN TAKES HOLD OF BUSINESS 


2II 


“What do you want to raise them for?” he asked 
impatiently. 

“Because they are not enough.” 

“It is all they can get anywhere else.” 

“But it is not all we can afford to give.” 

“I don’t know about that.” 

“I do. Of course we shall not make so much 
money, but it is not necessary that we should get 
very rich.” 

“Well, if you want to raise the wages of your 
hands, go ahead and do it, but I don’t want to do 
it for mine.” 

“But I want you to do it, for it will be easier if 
you join in the movement, and in the long run 
better for you. If you consent, I will prevail upon 
the administrator of the Culverwell estate to do 
the same.” 

“Just so; you will argue him out of his senses 
as you are doing me. There is Judge Barrier and 
the railroad company; they hire Italians at lower 
wages, and they will undersell us in the market.” 

“Not if we are content with less profit. And I 
think we can get along with less. It hurts me to 
go into these people’s homes and see how poor 
they are, and then go back to my own home where 
there is so much more than we need.” 

“Helen Hungerford, you are too good. You 
won’t do for business.” 


212 COLONEL HUNGERFORd’s DAUGHTER 

But after another hour of argument and plead- 
ing the agreement was made and the wages were 
raised. 

When Captain Clingraan told Judge Barrier 
about it a day or two afterwards, he said: “You 
were very, very foolish to make the agreement. 
What did you do it for?” 

“Because I couldn’t help myself. Did you ever 
talk with Miss Hungerford?” 

“No.” 

“Well, if you did, I believe she would argue 
some of the deviltr}^ even out of you. What with 
those earnest eyes looking at you, a smile playing 
across her lips, and that musical voice, she just 
melts the meanness right down in you. Besides, 
Mrs. Clingman and the girls stand in with her and 
always second her motions. But the next time she 
calls to see me on business I won’t be at home.” 

But the “young lady superintendent,” as Captain 
Clingman now called her, put no farther strain on 
the captain’s liberality until June, when she pro- 
posed a Saturda}" half-holiday. There w'as little 
or no prospective loss in this proposition, but with 
the usual dread of concessions which makes the 
capitalist or operator fear that any little “let-up” 
on labor will let down the whole system of things, 
he was disposed to hold out against it. John Cling- 
man had just returned from Europe, where he went 


HELEN TAKES HOLD OE BUSINESS 


213 


at the close of the session, and as the captain was 
taking him out home to supper one evening he 
said: 

“Jack, if you are going to marry Helen Hun- 
gerford, I wish you would do it soon and take her 
out of the coal business.” 

“Why, what is the matter?” 

“Only another little scheme. But it’s always 
some little scheme. You have seen your mother 
unraveling an old stocking. That is what Helen 
Hungerford is always doing with the old system 
of things. She has been coming out to Coal Creek 
nearly a year now, and you would hardly know 
the place or people. She has pulled out old boards 
and put in new ones until one shanty don’t know 
another, and the dogs jump over the wrong fences. 
The people even keep their faces clean, and they 
don’t drink half as much whisky as the}^ used to. 
There is only one saloon left now, and they say 
she intends to have that out of there before Christ- 
mas.” 

HOW SHE CAPTURED THE PEOPLE. 

“How did she bring it all about?” 

“Oh, visited them, patted the children on the 
cheeks, carried a basket of apples or plums with 
her every afternoon in the fall, and now it is roses. 
If you were out there of a Sunday morning you 


214 COLONEL HUNGERFORd’s DAUGHTER 

would think that the boys and girls had all just 
come from a conservatory or flower-show. They 
all have button-hole bouquets. 

“She persuaded two or three of the smartest 
boys to go to an academy, and I suspect helped them 
some. She has clubs and societies. One young 
fellow is president of one thing, and another of 
something else, and the girls are secretaries, and 
half the town is on committees. If a woman is 
sick she puts her in her buggy and has her boy 
give her a good ride. That pair of black horses 
has hauled more women and babies up and down 
the Coal Creek road than any dozen teams in the 
country. The people over there just idolize her. 
She can get them to do anything she wants them 
to do. She told them to fence in their back yards 
and raise vegetables, and every fellow did it. She 
told them to fish on Saturday afternoon instead of 
Sunday, and to go to Sunday-school and church, 
and, you wouldn’t believe it, but most of them did 
it. She told the young fellows to stop wasting their 
money and to la}^ it up to get married, and that is 
what they are doing now. She has started a 
penny savings bank after a plan that she saw 
somewhere in Europe, and she- has a little co- 
operative store, a big reading room, and a half- 
dozen other things. You never saw such a girl. 
She goes about it as if she was born for it. And 


HELEN TAKES HOLD OF BUSINESS 215 

I guess she was. She seems to have her father’s 
power of command and her mother’s power of per- 
suasion. 

“They say ‘that she made a speech to the men 
on Decoration Day, but whether she did or not, 
that will be the next thing. 

“And the thing is spreading. Your sisters are 
full of it. May has been appointed county super- 
intendent or something for the Sunday-school 
Union, and she is organizing Sunday-schools, and 
Daisy goes over to our mine and takes the chil- 
dren out riding. A lot of the Millersburg women 
have the craze too, and are doing all sorts of nice 
things. I tell you. Jack, Helen Hungerford’s 
style is all the fad now. She is classical, you knpAV, 
is traveled, speaks French, and is handsome-^nd 
an heiress. What she says goes. If she had set 
the pace the other way and gone to balls, all the 
young folks would be dancing. But she has a 
pious strain, and now it’s all the rage to go to 
church and do good.” 

“You are cynical, father; but why do you ob- 
ject to it?” 

“I don’t object to that. It’s all right, and I am 
proud of her. It is the way she wants to do busi- 
ness that makes me tired. She wants to raise 
wages and give half-holidays and things of that 
kind.” 


2i6 colonel hungerford^s dau<5hter 


‘‘Have you lost money by the raise?” 

“No, we have not lost money, but we have not 
made as much as we might. We have sold more 
coal, but the profit has been less.” 

“But you have no trouble with the men?” 

“ No, but if she was out of the business we would 
form a combination of all the mines — a thing her 
father always opposed-™and then we could dictate 
terms to miners and consumers.” 

“It is a good thing, then, that she is in the busi- 
ness, for 1 don’t like to see things get where 
neither the working man nor the public can bend 
things. It means that sooner or later they will 
break them. When it comes to conflicting inter- 
ests, there must be compromises or there will be a 
smash up. You have grown gray in business, 
and she has only a girl’s head on her shoulders, 
but it seems to be a mighty level head.” 

“Of course. Jack, of course, you are bound to 
think her head level, but the trouble with me is 
that I have never been headed that way. I have 
always gone on the principle of looking out for 
number one, and just now. Jack, you are looking 
out for number two.” 

Jack laughed heartily at his father’s sally. The 
boy came down to the gate and took charge of the 
horses, while the young congressman threw him- 
self down on the grass under a shade tree and 
was as happy as a boy from school. 


HELEN TAKES HOLD OF BUSINESS 217 

A month later came the great strike of 1877. 
Bursting out like a volcano in the mountains of 
Pennsylvania, and swallowing up vast amounts 
of property in flame, it swept over the country, 
carrying consternation everywhere. 

When the storm reached the miners at Coal 
Creek, they threw down their tools and refused 
to work. 

“We will wait until it is over,” they said; and 
then they gathered in groups and discussed mat- 
ters, but kept quiet. 

The next morning, however, a sheriff’s guard 
was put over the property of the railroad company. 
It angered the men, and an agitator began to ha- 
rangue them with incendiary speeches. The crowd 
increased, and with it the threats of violence. Just 
as it happened in so many other places during that 
dangerous crisis, men seemed to spring out of 
the ground. Who they were or where they came 
from was a mystery. And almost as inexplicable 
was the passion which seized upon great classes 
of men who had no particular grievances. It was 
a strange fire which seemed to light up the wrath 
of the whole labor element of the land. And 
this fire, sweeping through the excited multitudes at 
Coal Creek, soon broke into an angry storm. There 
was a rush for Judge Barrier’s works, and the 
office, sheds and other buildings were instantly de- 


2i8 colonel hungerford’s daughter 

molished. Next, the mob moved toward the rail- 
road to fire the depot and other property. The 
sheriff’s posse was helpless and beat a retreat. 

“Oh, for an hour of Colonel Hungerfordl” 
groaned one of the citizens. 

Captain Clingman rode among the men and be- 
sought them not wantonly to destroy property. 
“It will do you no good,” he said, “and do us 
all much harm.” 

“That is what we want, to do you harm,” was 
the angrj^ reply. But his own men surrounded 
his horse and conducted him safely away. 

Then there was a stir and a shout on the outer 
edge of the crowd, and the leader of the mob said 
in a low tone to the vicious looking men around 
him: “There comes the girl superintendent. If 
she gets in here and talks to these men, this thing 
will all be over with. Catch her horses and lead 
them away.” 

As the well-known black horses dashed up, the 
leaders of the mob sprang through the surging 
throng and clutched at the reins. The Hunger- 
ford and Clingman miners rushed forward and 
there was a struggle around the carriage. The 
horses became frightened, reared and plunged, and 
whirling around, overturned the vehicle. A strong 
miner caught Helen in his arms, and when the 
horses were quieted, helped her back into the car- 
riage. She waved her hand for silence. 








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You are men. All 1 ask of you to-day is to be manly.”— Page aiy. 


Helen takes hold of business 21$ 

“You have got to hear her/’ shouted the men 
around her. “For she is our friend if anybody is.” 

“You are men,” she said. “All I ask of you to- 
day is to be manly. But burning buildings and 
destroying property is not manly. It is wanton 
wickedness. I have been your friend, but I shall 
swear in court against every man that applies the 
torch.” 

“Put hef out. Take her away,” angrily cried 
the leader of the mob. 

“Who is that man?” said the resolute young 
woman. “What has he done for you? What can 
he do for you? You know who I am and who my 
father was. Was he your enemy?” 

“No, no,” thundered the crowd. 

“Have I been your enem}^?” 

“No, no,” they shouted again. “You are the 
best friend the miners ever had.” 

“Then hear me.” 

And they did hear her. At her call a majority 
of the men came forward and volunteered to join 
the sheriff’s posse in standing guard over Judge 
Barrier’s and the railroad company’s property. 
The storm passed away, and in a few days the 
men were all at work and the trains were all run- 
ning. 

After that there were no more contemptuous 
remarks, even in Judge Barrier’s office, about the 
“young coal baroness out at Coal Creek.” 


220 


COT.ONEL HUNGERFORd’s DAUGHTER 


John Clingman could not resist the temptation 
to turn the laugh on his father, and to tell him that 
in the business of managing mobs woman seemed 
to be the coming man. 

“Yes, she has converted me,” was the reply. 
“Hereafter I’ll do whatever she says. If she 
asks me to give every baby born on Coal Creek a 
pair of golden slippers. I’ll do it.” 

“She will have you an elder in her young 
church Qut there, the first thing you know.” 


CHAPTER XX. 


AN IRISH ORATOR TURNS HIS BATTERIES AGAINST 
HELEN. 

There was nothing aristocratic about the saloon 
at Coal Creek. It kept no oleanders in front, had 
no green screens and no pictures on the walls, 
and served no hot lunches. But it had the infinite 
attraction of all saloons, whisky and beer. Many 
reasons are given to explain why men go to sa- 
loons. The real reasons are in bottles and barrels. 

And being a saloon, it was a fixture and a pow- 
er. Other forms and implements of evil have to 
go. But the saloon stands like Gibraltar. It 
enjoys the unique position of being watched over, 
patronized and petted by the guardians of the laws 
which it violates, and of being most loved by its 
worst victims. 

It was no wonder, therefore, that Helen Hun- 
gerford found the closing up of the last saloon at 
Coal Creek the most difficult undertaking which 
she had attempted. It held on and flourished, 
and the proprietor and patrons laughed at her be- 
nevolent schemes of reform. The old topers who 
221 


2 22 COLONEL HUNGERFORD’s DAUGHTER 

lolled on the rough benches under the shade trees 
of the “Tired Man’s Rest,” as it was called, looked 
sleepily up at the black horses and the young 
lady as she went by, winked at one another, and 
“allowed” that if “Moike’s place” was an eyesore 
to the girl coal-operator, she would have sore eyes 
all the rest of her days. 

But after long conferences among temperance 
workers, it was determined to make another effort 
under the local option law. Other townships in 
the county had been carried under this law, and 
although twice defeated in Coal Creek Township, 
Helen prevailed upon the temperance people to try 
it again. 

“ I want you to help us,” she said to John Cling- 
man one evening when he had called. “You can 
do more for us than anj^body else.” 

“Perhaps I can do something for you, but you 
know what it will mean for me. The whole liquor 
interest of the district will be arrayed against me 
when the time comes for reelection next year. If 
you strike one saloon, you strike the whole busi- 
ness, and they all hold together. With the saloon 
there is no politics but whisky, and with liquor 
dealers there is only one party and that is the liquor 
party. It is more than some of these fellows can 
well stand now that I never drink. Another 
straw will break the camel’s back.” 


AN IRISH ORATOR 


223 


“But you believe in backbone and grit. And I 
do not think they can turn you down, as the phrase 
goes. You are too strong, too popular with fathers, 
mothers, young people and all good people.” 

“But the mothers and the nice young women 
don’t vote, and only votes count. You are running 
a farm and a coal mine, and employing men and 
all that kind of thing, but when election day comes, 
all you can do is to ride up and ask how the elec- 
tion is going, while your twenty-one~3^ear-old 
driver gets out and votes. Women may want to 
reform politics and put down the whisky power 
and all that, but on the greatest day of the year 
they have to stand still and see the procession go 
by.” 

‘^No, I can do more than that. If I can persuade 
you to make a speech or two for us, that will be 
worth more than my vote a score of times. I am 
not sure that women need to vote, but we do need 
to be powerfully persuasive. You will make the 
speeches, won’t you?” 

“I shall see.” 

And he did see. For when his two sisters told 
him that they had “enlisted for the war” and 
wanted him to be a captain, he gave way and said 
that he would be on hand whenever called for. 

The election was set for a special day in Octo- 
ber, and early in September the campaign was 


224 COLONEL HUNGERFORD’s DAUGHTER 

warm. Helen devoted herself to the meetings 
held in schoolhouses, and to kind attentions to 
the miners’ families. But she soon found a for- 
midable enemy in a young Irishman who had the 
humor, eloquence and cunning of speech which 
have so distinguished his people. He generally 
carried the crowd with him wherever he appeared. 

He would say in his jolly Irish way: 

“The young leddy tells yez not to sphind your 
money for dhrink. But we all has our ways of 
sphindin’ money. Sha goes over the saa and 
sphinds hers and I sphinds moine gethin’ half-saas 
over. It’s all a mather of taiste. Sha drisses in 
good taiste, and I dhrinks what taistes good. Sha 
loikes an oystrich fither, and I loikes agin cock- 
tail. The fither makes her look pritty and the 
cocktail makes me fale good. Sha goes aroond 
tratin’ yez all noicely, and I trates yez all aroond. 
Betwane us yez gits noice tratement. I’m not afther 
boastin’ of mesilf, but I’m a little loike Hilin. 
Whin sha mates the ould woman, sha smoiles in 
her swate way and siz, ‘Good mornin’, Mrs. Flan- 
nigan.’ And whin I mates the ould man I siz in 
me bland way, ‘Good mornin’, Mr. Flannigan, 
hev a smoile,’ and me smoile costs more than her 
smoile, and goes firther down. Sha kisses the 
baby gerrels, and I kisses thim too — whin they are 
oulder. Sha is a swate leddy, a good leddy. 


AN IRISH ORATOR 


225 


Whin poor Mrs. Flaherty was doyin’ sha was up 
with her all noight. But whin sha was dhead, 
dhidn’t I sit up all noight, and wasn’t it the biggest 
wake iver hild on Coal Creek? Dhidn’t Moike till 
all his custimers the next dhay that it bate thim all? 

“Sha’s a noice leddy, a pritty ledd3\ I’ve 
nothin’ agin her. All the ither saints be prazed for 
St. Hilin. But sha don’t know how much good 
the crayther does yez. Sha droives a foine kir- 
ridge and dhon’t git toired. But yez works in the 
moines all dhay, and then whin yez comes out 
toired yez goes to the Toired Man’s Rist, and gits 
risted. A waa dhrop is mighty comfortin’. It 
warrums yez and makes yez fale bether. Faith, and 
we’re not afther the dhrink, but nature’s afther it. 

‘‘If St. Hilin dhon’t want to dhrink, sha naden’t. 
Nobhody’s coaxin’ of her to dhrink, and nobhody 
wants to saa her black horses sthand in front of 
Moike’s. But in a fra counthry you poor craythers 
moight be lift a place where you can git a waa 
dhrop. It’sfradom we’re afther. It’s the Diclar- 
ashun of Indepindence that I’m defindin’. Hale 
Columby! Plurj^bus Unum!” 

After this outburst of eloquent patriotism the 
crowd cheered for Jemmy O'Brien, and all went 
over to Mike’s place. 

Jemmy’s popularity made him bold, and he 
spread the word that he was going to be at the 


^26 COLONEL HUNGERFORD^S DAUGMTEBL 

big temperance rally which was soon to be held in 
the big grove dowm Coal Creek He boasted that 
he would challenge the speakers for a joint debate. 
When Helen heard of it, she sent him word that he 
would be welcome and that he might look for one 
of her buggies to take him to the picnic grounds. 

But on the morning of the meeting Jemmy be- 
gan to brace up with corn juice, and by noon he 
was under a shade tree alongside of the road, in a 
drunken sleep. Helen's driver, who was sent for 
him, reported the fact, but she told him to get- 
some help, put Jemmy in the carriage and bring 
him along. 

When Jemmy arrived she said, “‘Mr. O’Brien 
has advertised that he would be one of the speakers 
here to-day, and lam helping him to keep his en- 
gagement. Would you like to hear him now?” 

But Mr. O’Brien was snoring on the soft cushion 
of the phaeton. 

“He is too tired to speak now,” said a voice. 
“Let him go back to the Tired Man’s Rest.” 

“ He is too full for utterance,” exclaimed another. 

“Three cheers for Jemmy O’Brien,” cried an- 
other. “ He has made the best temperance speech of 
the day.” 

Three cheers were given, and Jemmy was sent 
home in the phaeton. 

The next day he swore that he would get even 


AN IRISH ORATOR 227 

with that “Temperance Terror,” who wanted to 
make everybody .eat and drink in her way. But 
the miners guyed him so much that he shook Coal 
Creek dust from his feet and hunted work in quar- 
ters where girl operators were not known. 

By a close vote local option was adopted. Not 
long afterwards Mike had to close up and follow 
Jemm3^ And then the old topers had to walk to 
Millersburg for their drinks. 

Captain Clingman called Helen’s attention to 
the result, with the remark that they got it any- 
how, She replied that she expected as much, but 
that there was a great difference between making 
an old toper walk far and hunt hard for his whis- 
ky, and throwing saloons wide open to tempt all 
the young men and boys ip the neighborhood. 


CHAPTER XXL 


SHE MARRIED ANOTHER MAN. 

The day before Christmas Sammy Suddendrop 
came home for a visit. He was dressed nobbily, 
had succeeded well with the cultivation of a 
brown mustache, and looked smart and had an air 
of business. It was six months since his last visit, 
and he asked numerous questions about the neigh- 
bors. 

“I have bad news to tell you,” said Mrs. Hun- 
gerford, after she had told him all the other news 
she could think of. “Sadie McNeil is to be mar- 
ried to-morrow.” 

Sammy's chin dropped and his eyes opened and 
looked large. 

“Yes, a natty young man came here to teach 
school last September, and he soon met Sadie. 
They say it was a case of love at first sight.” 

“I didn’t think Sadie would treat me that way 
after plunging into the deep to save her life. I 
wish I had let the little flirt drown.” 

“Oh, no, Sammy, but a detective ought to have 
detected her waning affection.” 

228 


SHE MARRIED ANOTHER MAN 


229 


“I did think it was cooling off. She stopped 
writing so often, but she said she had begun the 
study^of the romance literatures, whatever they 
are, and was very bus3\ A month ago she wrote 
that she had a lot of dressmaking on hand, and I 
must not expect many more letters from her before 
the holidays.” 

“She told the truth. She has been very busy 
making dresses, Samm3\” 

“There was nothing slow about the young fel- 
low, w'as there? What’s his name?” 

“ Winthrop C. Fellows. Here is one of the wed- 
ding cards.” 

“What is that you say?” said Sammy, jumping 
out of his chair and half-way across the room. 
“Winthrop C. Fellows? Has he brown hair, and 
a brown mustache, and a fair face?” 

“Yes.” 

“The deuce! I would like to kick myself clear 
out of the front gate.” 

“Oh, don’t do that, Sammy, for my sake. But 
what is the matter?” 

“Why, do you know, I found that fellow on 
the street in Chicago one day, dead broke. He 
had come from the East to make his fortune, but 
his spoke in the wheel didn’t come up, and he got 
out of money and out at the elbows, and looked as 
if all his friends were dead. We meet lots of such 


230 COLONEL HUNGERFORD’s DAUGHTER 

fellows, but he seemed to be a nice young man and 
I took to him and helped him a little. He came 
to the office several times, and one day he said 
that he had run the town over, and couldn’t get 
anything to do. He was sick and tired of the strug- 
gle, he said, and had about made up his mind to 
go and throw himself into the Chicago River. 

“‘Don’t do that,’ I said. ‘The water smells 
bad, and you might catch cold. I know a thing 
that is worth a dozen of that. Go out into the 
country and get a school. You are smart and well 
educated, and can get a good school. They will 
board you at some nice farmer’s and you will have 
fried chicken every da3L Besides, as handsome a 
fellow as you are could soon capture some farmer’s 
pretty daughter — the woods are full of them — and 
get settled down on a farm. That would be lots 
better than to be fished out of the Chicago River, 
hauled off to the morgue, and have people come 
and look at your white face, and the coroner sit on 
you.’ 

“He said he would try it, if he only had money 
enough to get a decent suit of clothes. 

“So I loaned him twenty-five dollars, and sent 
him off as nobby as if he had just come out of a 
bandbox. He was to send back the money when 
he got his first installment of salary, and he did. 
But he took good care not to send his letter from 


SHE MARRIED ANOTHER MAN 


231 


Millersbur^. He headed it up, ‘First Station on 
the Way to Blooming Success;’ then slipped it into 
the mail car. 

“But just to think that it was my borrowed 
money that helped him to break into my best girl’s 
heart! I suppose it’s poetic justice or something 
that way. I kept those two people from being 
drowned, and now here they are gliding blissfully 
down the river of time together, while I stand on 
the bank and see them go by. I wish I had sent 
him up to North Dakota and let the blizzards blow 
him awa}’.” 

“Don’t worry, Sammy; there are more good 
fish in the river than were ever caught out of it.” 

“That may be so, but I won’t dO any more fish- 
ing in this creek. I’ll fall back on some Chicago 
millionaire’s daughter.” 

“I presume that there are plenty of millionaires’ 
daughters on Michigan Avenue just sighing for 
Sammy Suddendrop to drop in.” 

“Yes, hundreds of them. But was it because of 
Sadie’s wedding that Helen wrote me to be sure 
and come home to-day?” 

“No, there is some other bad news. That old 
trouble about the farm has taken a bad turn. Some 
important papers, they say, have been discovered, 
and we want you to go to New York for us im- 
mediately. 


232 COLONEL HUNGERFORD’s DAUGHTER 

“The heirs of Mr. Jones, who once owned this 
property, say that he died believing that he owned 
a section of farming land and a half-section of other 
land on which there was supposed to be coal, all 
in this township, that he spoke to the executor of 
the will about it a few days before his death. In 
his will he speaks of his land in this county in a 
general way, along with some other lands in the 
state. But when the executor wrote on here about 
it, the county recorder answered that Mr. Jones 
had no land here at the time of his death, that the 
records showed that it had all been sold previously. 
The executor thought that as Mr. Jones had other 
lands in the West, he had made a mistake about it, 
and let it pass. But the heirs were never satisfied, 
and off and on kept stirring the matter up. Re- 
cently they learned that about the time Mr. Jones 
was supposed to have transferred his lands, two 
swindlers were operating in this county, that they 
forged deeds to the property of non-residents and 
then sold the land to others. They have become 
persuaded that our land was one of the tracts which 
these swindlers operated on. 

“Now these men were my father’s neighbors, 
and when that man was here from New York I 
told Mr. Hungerford all about them, but he did 
not think there was any connection between the 
two things. 


SHE MARRIED ANOTHER MAN 233 

“Their names were Dorset and Barney, The 
latter went to the penitentiary and the other disap- 
peared, and neither has been seen since that time. 
But one of Dorset’s family is still living near my 
old home in New York State. 

SOME FINE DETECTIVE WORK. 

“Now we want you to go to New York City, 
and, if you think best,to my old home, and pick up 
all the facts you can. The case will probably come 
up in the spring term of court, for we understand 
that they are about to begin suit.” 

Sammy Suddendrop was soon off to New York, 
and four weeks later returned. He said that he 
had found the man in New York who had paid 
them a visit some four years before, that his name 
was Shirley, and his business that of a gambler 
and confidence man. With the help of the New 
York detectives he had put himself in friendl}^ re- 
lations with Shirley and developed an interesting 
line of information, all of which he could not make 
known then. But through Shirley he learned that 
Barney, after leaving the penitentiary, kept a 
gambling establishment in New York until his 
death, and that he was the source of Shirley’s 
knowledge about the land titles. “Barney told 
Shirley that they did forge the deed to the section 
and a half of land owned by Mr. Jones and after- 


234 COLONEL HUNGERFORd’s DAUGHTER 

wards sold to Mr. Hungerford. What is worse, 
Shirley claims that he now has the copy of the 
forged deed and that it will be used in evidence in 
the trial, and that the signature will show that it is 
a forgery.” 

“Why, then, did he tell us that the heirs were 
disputing our claim to the property on the ground 
that the wife of Jones refused to sign the deed?” 
asked Mrs. Hungerford. 

“Because at one time there was such a dispute, 
and for some reason or other Shirley did not seem 
ready at that time to spring the other matter. 
There is something there that has not yet been de- 
veloped, a string that has not been pulled to the 
end. But this is certain, what Shirley wanted of 
Colonel Hungerford was money. He was trying 
to work him up to buying off his evidence. And 
he says that he did not leave Millersburg until he 
got a thousand dollars, but not from Colonel Hun- 
gerford.” 

“Who from?” 

“Captain Clingman.” 

“For what?” 

“Never mind about that now; let me go on 
with the storjL I also learned from Shirley that 
Barney told him that Dorset was not lynched, as 
was reported at the time, but that he escaped and 
went to the Pacific coast, and was seen there after- 


SHE MARRIED ANOTHER MAN 235 

wards by one of Barney's gambling friends who 
knew him. Then I went to Dorset’s old home, and 
through the postmaster discovered that letters had 
passed between the remaining members of his 
family and a little town in Washington Territor}’. 
By the help of a servant in the family I got the 
name of the town. And now I am going there.” 

The next morning, while Mrs. Hungerford was 
busy with household affairs, Sammy said to Helen 
in the parlor: “I have unpleasant news for you.” 

“About whom or what?” 

“About Lindell Norwin. He is drinking badly, 
and running down-hill fast. His friends say that he 
was so brilliant and sjich jolly good company that 
the club men took to him, and he got in with a fast 
set, who led him on at a great pace. 

“I did not see him or Mildred, but was told that 
she was a very sad young woman and was seldom 
seen out of her home. They have taken cheaper 
apartments and he is likely to lose his place any 
day.” 

Helen leaned over on the table with her face in 
her hand?, and when she looked up again there 
were tears in her eyes, and she said in a husky 
voice: 

“Poor Mildred I So sweet and good, and a 
blight upon her life before she has been married 
two years! But, Sammy, for my love of her don’t 
tell this.” 


236 COLONEL HUNGERFORD’s DAUGHTER 

The trip to Washington Territory took two 
months, and as Sammy had said when leaving that 
he would not write, because he did not w'ant letters 
from that quarter to come to the Millersburg post- 
office, the time seemed long. It was a great relief 
to Mrs. Hungerford and Helen when they saw him 
walking briskly up from the gate, and the}^ listened 
eagerly to his story, when he had finished his 
supper and they were once more in the parlor to- 
gether. 

“I found the man,” he said, with professional 
pride and boyish enthusiasm. “Far back in the ter- 
ritory, in a little town at the foot of the mountains 
I found him; an old man, gray and bent, and very 
poor. But there was no word against him in the 
town ; all the neighbors said he was a nice old man. 
But it was nearly a month before I could do any- 
thing with him. He was shy and shrewd and reti- 
cent. But at last I concluded to be more frank 
with him, and to come out openly about the mat- 
ter. I told him that I knew who he was and about 
his past history, but did not intend to get him into 
any trouble, but to get others out of trouble. I 
askd him if he remembered Frances Elwood, and 
then I told him all about your marriage to the 
colonel and his career as a soldier and his death. 
I also explained the trouble which you are now in 
about the land. 


SHE MARRIED ANOTHER MAN 23^ 

“The tears came in the old man’s eyes, and then 
as we sat there by the little wood fire, with the 
winds howling through the pines, he told me the 
story of his life. It was a sad story, from the time 
his sins overtook him, as he expressed it. 

“Once he stopped and said: ‘Young man, don’t 
fool with that text in the Bible, “The way of the 
transgressor is hard.” ’ His wife got a divorce from 
him, he said, when she discovered that he had 
gone wrong. He had never seen any of his chil- 
dren from the day of his arrest. For years he was 
haunted with fear day and night. The shaking 
of a twig or rustling of a dry leaf frightened him, 
nothing that he did prospered, and he was always 
lonely and homesick. Sometimes he wished that 
he had gone to the penitentiary and got through 
with it. But after his escape he had always tried to 
live a respectable life. Now he was old, and only 
had a few years more, and it did not make much 
difference what happened. 

“I argued long and hard with him to tell all he 
knew about this case. I told him that if the Jones 
heirs had a just claim, you wanted to know it. 
It was plain that Colonel Hungerford had been an 
innocent purchaser, but that you wished the right 
thing done whatever the cost. 

“But he held back until I went to the station and 
did some long telegraphing with our prosecuting 


238 COLONEL HUNGERFORD’s DAUGHTER 

attorney. When I showed him the last telegram, he 
said he would do all he could to make the matter 
clear. Then he went to a little pine cupboard in 
the back of the room and got out an old bundle of 
yellow documents. 

“T carried these papers to the Pacific coast in 
my valise,’ he said, ‘and have kept them for years. 
At first I thought I might sell them some day, and 
afterwards I thought they might be needed.’ 

“We looked over the papers. There were some 
astonishing things in them. They are there in 
my traveling bag now. The old man himself is 
in Chicago, where he will be looked after until 
the trial comes off. 

“When will that be?” 

“Not until July. At that time John Clingman 
will be back from Washington. He is to conduct 
our side of the case.” 

“John Clingman will be very much surprised 
before he gets through with it. So will Captain 
Clingman before it is all over. And there will be 
such a sensation in Millersburg as that town has 
not known for many a day.” 

“You almost frighten me,” said Mrs. Hunger- 
ford. 

“The scare is not on our side.” 


CHAPTER XXII. 


AN EXCITING TRIAL. 

It was the middle of August before the “Hon- 
orable Circuit Court” reached the case of the Jones 
heirs against Mrs. Frances Elvvood Hungerford 
and heirs of Colonel Edward J. Hungerford’s es- 
tate. No civil case in that court had ever before 
excited so much interest, and a multitude of spec- 
tators gathered in town on the opening day of the 
trial. Old neighbors and old soldiers were there, 
both from curiosity and from sympathy. In any 
case between a neighbor and a resident of a dis- 
tant city, the neighbor easily gets the big end of 
the sympathy. But in this case the deep affection 
of soldiers and citizens for Colonel Hungerford 
awakened a feeling which was not easily meas- 
ured. 

The plaintiff’s attorneys proved by the former 
executor of the Jones estate, now an old man, that 
Mr. Jones died believing himself possessed of a 
section and a half of land in Coal Creek Town- 
ship, and that when he examined his papers he 
found the deeds for these two different tracts of 
239 


240 COLONEL HUNGERFORD^S DAUGHTER 

land. But when the county records at Millers- 
burg were examined they showed that the land 
had been transferred by Jones to a party named 
Hunter, and he gave it no further attention at the 
time. 

Next the deed from Jones to Hunter was sub- 
mitted, and Shirley testified that he had secured it 
from one of Hunter’s heirs with whom his papers 
had been left. Then by comparison with other 
papers signed by Jones the signature to the deed 
was shown to be a forgery. 

“But,” said John Clingman, “this deed bears 
the notarial seal and signature of William Stanvelt, 
of the real estate firm of Stanvelt Brothers. Will 
the witness explain that fact?” 

“We shall call another witness to testify on that 
point,” said the plaintiff’s attorney. 

William R. Stanvelt was then called. Before 
beginning his testimony he cast a protesting glance 
at Helen, as if he thought himself about to be 
used, very much against his will, to help deprive 
her of her estate. But the calm look of confidence 
with which she returned his glance relieved him 
of all embarrassment. 

Mr. Stanvelt testified that William Stanvelt was 
his uncle, that he was now dead, but was a part- 
ner in the firm at that time and a notary public. 
But while this deed bore his notarial seal, the sig- 


AN EXCITING TRIAL 


241 


nature was not his but a forgery. In proof of this, 
he submitted numerous papers signed by his uncle 
which showed by comparison that the signature in 
the acknowledgment was not his. He then ex- 
plained that a clerk employed by the firm, named 
Cassidy, had afterwards been found guilty of em- 
bezzlement and forgery, and sent to prison. When 
this deed came to light a year before, it was too 
late to take action against the offender, as he had 
already been punished. But Mr. Stanvelt obtained 
from him a written admission that he had surrep- 
titiously used the seal and appended the signature 
of William Stanvelt. 

“Your Honor,” said Clingman, “the evidence 
of this witness in regard to the admission of the 
clerk could be objected to on technical grounds, 
but inasmuch as the defense is after the truth we 
shall make no objection, but give the witness full 
liberty.” 

The old neighbors looked approvingly at Cling- 
man, and quietly remarked to one another that 
Jack Clingman always was the most straightfor- 
w'ard lawyer in the country. 

Judge Barrier was then put on the stand, and 
testified that at the time this transfer was made he 
was a new arrival in Millersburg and was just be- 
ginning his practice in the county. He said that 
the men who were afterwards known as Dorset 


242 COLONEL HUNGERFORD’s DAUGHTER 

and Barney came into his office one day with a 
man named Hunter, and made an agreement with 
him to sell him the Jones lands. The latter paid 
them some earnest money to bind the transaction, 
but they did not come in again. But about a 
month later he learned that a deed had been made 
to Hunter. 

When court adjourned for the day, the old neigh- 
bors went home feeling that the New York heirs 
had made a strong case, and that matters looked 
dark for Mrs. Hungerford and her daughter. 

“Your testimony was pretty hard on us to-day,” 
said Mrs. Hungerford to Mr. Stanvelt, “but we 
want you to go home with us and accept our hos- 
pitality during the remainder of your stay here.” 

“I shall only be too happy to do so,” he re- 
plied, “for I have a world of pleasant recollec- 
tions of Miss Hungerford in Europe, and during 
the two days that I have been in this little city I 
have heard so much about her brilliant ability as 
a business manager, and about her philanthropic 
schemes, that I should like to have an opportunity 
to talk such matters over with her.” 

Mrs. Hungerford took Mr. Stanvelt into the car- 
riage and drove away. But Helen remained for 
a couple of hours in consultation with John Cling- 
man and Sammy Suddendrop, and then rode home 
with Sammy. 


AN EXCITING TRIAL 


243 



‘‘Sammy,” she said on the way out, “I think 
Mr. Clingman feels a little uneasy about your wit- 
ness from Washington. Why didn’t you state more 
frankly what you meant in regard to Judge Bar- 
rier, and about the forged title having to fiqd a 
resting place somewhere?” 

“Oh, that will be all plain enough to-morrow,” 
he replied. 

“But, Sammy, I think you know that some- 
body else will get hurt in this matter.” 

“Well, what if they do? The world is full of 
aches and pains. It has made my legs ache to run 
all the way to the Atlantic coast, and then all the 
away to the Pacific coast and back, over this busi- 
ness. It will be some other man’s turn to ache 
pretty soon. But we are at the gate, and there is 
your mother at the window looking for you, as she 
generally is when you are away.” 

THE OLD W-ITNESS. 

That night there were rumors in the air at Mil- 
lersburg. A strange old man had come to town 
as a witness, it was said, and it was two to one 
that there would be some interesting developments. 
In the morning the crush in the court room was so 
great that most of the country people could get 
no further than the 3’ard, and the interested par- 
ties found it almost impossible to edge their way 

i 

i 


COT.ONEL HUNGERFORD’s DAUGHTER 


into their places. John Clingman and Helen Hun- 
gerford looked equally nervous and anxious. The 
calmness which she so easily maintained through 
the worst evidence of the previous day, had left 
her, and her face was flushed and pale by turns. 
Mrs. Hungerford maintained the same dignified 
air that had been the characteristic of her life, a 
dignity softened and made beautiful b}^ the kind 
eye and sweet expression of countenance. Mr. 
Stanvelt was an interested spectator, looking the 
throng over as if he was studying western manners 
and personal peculiarities for the first time. And 
in turn he was himself the object of many glances, 
for he was a man to attract observation anywhere. 
He was also understood to be an admiring friend 
of Helen, even if he was a witness against her side 
of the case. 

With the opening of court the defense at once 
began its testimony, Clingman’s partner conduct- 
ing the examination of the witnesses. An hour 
was spent in proving various matters connected 
with the purchase of the property by Hunter and 
his sale to Colonel Hungerford. Then the bailiff 
was directed to call Thomas J. Dorset to the stand. 
When this name was called, there was a thrill of 
excitement in the court room. The spectators rose 
in their seats, and the people in the yard pressed 
up to the open windows. The attorneys, the sheriff 


AN EXCITING TRIAL 


24s 


and deputies looked eagerly around the room. 
Judge Barrier started as if struck, pressed his 
way through the throng to the little ice water tank, 
gulped down a glass of water and disappeared 
through the door. 

The witness came forward, a neatly dressed old 
man, his long white hair so smoothly combed as 
to give him a somewhat venerable appearance. The 
keen, bright eye denoted a vigor of mind quite be- 
yond that of the poor, stooped body. And alto- 
gether iie seemed to be a man who had himself 
well in hand. 

After he had taken his seat it was some minutes 
before order could be sufficiently restored for 
his testimony. John Clingman arose and began 
the examination. Having asked him his name and 
other preliminary questions, he said to him: 

“Mr. Dorset, will you tell this jury all you know 
about this case, as briefly and clearly as you can, 
and give all the facts?” 

“In 1846,” he said, “Levi Barney and myself 
came to Millersburg under the assumed names of 
Steadman and Woodrow, and as the agents of east- 
ern land owners. We spent some days in looking 
up lands belonging to non-residents, and then made 
a contract with Hunter to sell him section nine, and 
one-half of section fifteen, in Coal Creek Town- 
ship, of which John Thomas Jones was the owner. 


246 COLONEL HUNGERFORd’s DAUGHTER 

We represented to Hunter that we were agents for 
Jones and showed him letters from Jones authoriz- 
ing us to sell the lands, but these letters were not 
written by Jones. We were to have a month in 
which to send east for the deed, and complete the 
transaction. In due time the deed came. It was 
a forged deed.” 

“Forged by whom?” 

a clerk in the office of Stanvelt Brothers, 
New York. We had accomplices in the East and 
here in the West, and he was the man through 
whom we worked the lands belonging to New 
York men.” 

“What was his name?” 

“Cassidy. Edward Cassidy. Ned we called 
him.” 

“Go on with your evidence.” 

“When the deed came Hunter was not in town, 
and before his return we received a letter from 
Cassidy saying that if we had not yet given Hun- 
ter the deed, for heaven’s sake not to do it. For 
the next day after he sent it, Jones himself came 
into the office and signed a deed to these lands to 
this same man Hunter, that the deed was acknowl- 
edged before William Stanvelt, notary, and he said 
that if we attempted to use the other deed the 
whole plot would be exposed, and we would all 
be caught.” 


AN EXCITING TRIAL. 247 

There was a great stir in the court room when 
the witness made this statement. But in a moment 
the excited audience dropped into breathless si- 
lence, and all leaned forward to hear the calmly 
spoken words of the old man. 

“Can you produce that letter,” asked Cling- 
man. 

“Yes.” 

And the old man unfolded a small package 
which had been resting on his knee and handed 
the attorney a very old, yellow looking envelope. 
The letter was dated New York, July 7, 1846, 
and was signed by Edward Cassidy. The con- 
tents were as stated by the witness. 

“We kept quiet,” the witness continued, “and 
two days later Hunter returned. He told us that 
he had some reason to doubt our authority to sell 
the property, and had bought of another agent, 
and he demanded the return of his earnest money. 
The fact was, that the other agent gave him better 
terms. But we returned his money to keep 
things quiet. The deed to Hunter was put on 
record the same day.” 

“What did you do with the forged deed?” 

“Barney took it.” 

“Would you know it if you saw it now?” 

“I might. We put a mark on all our papers so 
that our accomplices would know them. Every 
man in the ring knew this mark.” 


colonel hunoereord^s daughter 

The attorney then handed the witness the deed 
which was submitted the previous day. The old 
man wiped his glasses and looked it over carefully. 
‘‘I do not see the marks, but my sight is not good. 
Will you look in the opposite corners of the paper 
and see whether there is a very small ‘b’ in the 
upper corner and an almost invisible capital ‘D’ 
in the lower corner?” Clingman took the paper 
and handed it to the clerk, who by direction of the 
court examined it and declared that the two letters 
as described were visible. He was then put on the 
stand and sworn, and testified to the presence of 
the letters. The interest became more intense. 

“May it please your Honor,” said the attorney, 
“this witness is an old man, and we should like to 
permit him to rest until after the noon recess. 
But it was agreed yesterday that we should be 
permitted to recall the plaintiff’s witness, Shirley^ 
before closing the case. We now ask to have him 
take the stand.” 

Shirley came forward in a dogged manner, but 
assumed a defiant attitude when the questioning 
began. 

“Will 3^ou tell us again, Mr. Shirley,” said 
Clingman in a gentle manner, “ where you got that 
deed?” 

Then Shirley told how he had traced the Hun- 
ters until at last he had found an heir in a southern 


AN EXCITING TRIAL 


249 

State and from him obtained the paper. But Cling- 
man turned upon him his talent for cross-question- 
ing, which had given him great reputation, and, 
before he was through, had made him contradict 
himself so palpably as to destroy the credibility of 
his testimony. After securing from him a com- 
plete admission of his acquaintance with Barney in 
New York, the shrewd lawyer stepped close up to 
him, looking him full in the face as he shrank 
down into his chair, and exclaimed: 

“You got this deed from Barney? You took it 
for a gambling debt, didn’t you?” 

The witness turned crimson, gasped a feeble 
denial, and was dismissed. The effect on the jury 
was sufficiently evident, as they watched him leave 
the chair with ill-concealed contempt. 

Court then adjourned for the noon recess, but the 
majority of the spectators refused to leave the room. 

“Mrs. Hungerford has won the case,” said an 
old neighbor. “That is,” said another, “if the 
lawyer on the other side doesn’t tear up Dorset 
on the cross-examination as Jack Clingman did 
Shirley.” 

Clingman was warmly congratulated, but there 
was a very anxious look on his face when he took 
his father into his private office and told him to be 
prepared for surprises, for he didn’t know himself 
what might happen before they got through with 
the case. 


CHAPTER XXIII. 


STARTLING DEVELOPEMENTS. 

‘‘You said, Mr. Dorset, that you had some west- 
ern accomplices,” began Clingman when he re- 
sumed the examination after the noon recess. “Did 
anybody assist you in your operations in this 
county ?” 

“Yes.” 

“One of the citizens?” 

“Yes.” 

“Will you please to give us the name?” 

The stillness which fell over the assembly as it 
waited for an answer to the question was death- 
like. 

The old man paused, turned his eyes upward 
and seemed to be looking back through the years, 
scanning the faces of those who had long since 
passed before him, and calling their names again 
into memory. Then, after looking slowly and 
searchingly around the room, he turned toward 
the anxious face of the lawyer and said: 

“He was a 370ung lawyer. His name was Bar- 
rier — Augustus C. Barrier.” 

A cry of astonishment broke from the assembly. 

250 


StARTLlNG DEVELOPMENTS 

Men rose from their seats, and the throng swayed 
back and forth. Clingman dropped back into his 
chair, and the other attorneys sat speechless. 

Judge Barrier had been a prominent figure in 
Millersburg for more than thirty-three years. He 
had come there a stranger, but had marked talent, 
and rose rapidly in his profession, was elected 
state’s attornej’, and afterward judge of the cir- 
cuit court to fill an unexpircd term. His practice 
was large, and he had become one of the wealthiest 
men in the county. But he had long been regarded 
as wanting in strict integrity, as somewhat unscru- 
pulous in his profession, a shrewd and conscience- 
less schemer in politics. His war on Congressman 
Clingman, begun soon after the latter’s first nomi- 
nation, as v^;e have seen, became very bitter and 
had greaty estranged the congressman’s friends. 

But the sudden revelation of the old witness fell 
like a thunderbolt in an open day. Whatever the 
men who lived in Millersburg thirty years back 
might have suspected at the time, now most of 
them had moved out of the county or gone to their 
graves. And the whole scene seemed to those 
present like a coming to the day of judgment. 

When the spectators had recovered from their 
first shock, all eyes were turned in search of Judge 
Barrier. But he had not been in the court room 
since Dorset took the witness stand. And he was 
never there again. 


252 COLONEL HUNGERFORd’s DAUGHTER 

“We are through with this witness, for the pres- 
ent,” said Clingman. 

The cross-examination was severe and deter- 
mined. The plaintiff’s attorney was a man of equal 
skill and ability with the congressman, and he 
brought all his shrewdness and skill to bear on the 
attempt to destroy the evidence of the old man. 
But he held to his story in such a simple and 
straightforward manner as to strengthen the effect 
of his testimony. 

At length the attorney paused, consulted with 
his associates for a few moments, then turned to 
the witness and with great deliberation said: 

“Mr. Dorset, did your operations, as you call 
them, extend to any other lands owned in this 
county by John Thomas Jones of New York?” 

“Yes, sir.” 

“What were they?” 

The silence again became oppressive, while the 
witness looked through his bundle of papers. 

“They were section eleven, and one-half of sec- 
tion fifteen, in Coal Creek Township.” 

Captain Clingman shuddered, and the anxious 
look in his son’s face deepened. This was the 
home farm and the coal land of Captain Cling- 
man. 

“This evidence does not relate to the property 
in dispute,” said the judge. 


STARTLING DEVELOPMENTS 253 

“That is true,” said Clingman, “but will the 
court please let the witness go on? These parties 
are looking for stolen land, and we are willing 
that all the facts should come out.” 

“Go on then,” said the court. 

“How did you operate in this case?” said the 
attorney. 

“We had this deed made out in the name of 
John Thomas Jones and signed by himself and 
wife, Elizabeth J. Jones, the name of the wife of 
the cousin, John Thomas Jones. Then the clerk 
in Stanvelt Brothers’ office, on the day that Mr. 
Jones died, slipped the deeds to these two tracts 
out from among his papers, and this caused the 
confusion which has kept the matter of section 
eleven and the other half of section fifteen con- 
cealed all these years. The old deeds to the Hun- 
gerford lands were left among the papers, after 
they were sold, and the executors and heirs thought 
that these other lands had belonged to the cousin 
who owned numerous tracts in the West at one 
time. But he had sold them and gone back to 
Wales to live. We knew these facts fully, as we 
operated on a tract belonging to John Thomas 
Jones, in another county.” 

“Don’t argue the case, Mr. Dorset, but tell us 
what else you did.” 

“We had the property deeded to a fictitious 


254 COLONEL HUNGERFORD’s DAUGHTER 

name, Dobson, as it appears on the record, then 
to an accomplice under the name of Mj^ers, an 
alias^ and through Myers we sold the property to 
Captain Clingman for fifteen thousand dollars, I 
think it was. Barney and myself kept under cover 
in the matter and Myers was introduced to Captain 
Clingman by Barrier, who vouched for him, and 
showed him the stolen deeds and other papers.” 

“What made you pitch on Captain Clingman 
as a victim?” asked the attorney with a smile and 
a shy glance at the captain, who looked as if he 
would fall from his chair at any moment. 

“We got on the track of him in the East, just 
after he received considerable money through his 
wife, and we tolled him out here to work this land 
off on him.” 

This last statement turned the situation, which 
had been so intensely tragical, into comedy for the 
moment. For if there was any one in the county 
who had a reputation for shrewdness and knowl- 
edge of men, it was Captain Clingman. The spec- 
tators laughed heartily, and the captain himself 
joined them. But the congressman looked serious, 
probably because he had a foreboding of the de- 
velopments w’hich were yet to come. 

“Have you any of the papers used in these 
transactions here?” 

“Yes.” 


STARTLING DEVELOPMENTS 


255 


And then the old man handed the attorney the 
deeds which had been stolen from the office of 
Stanvelt Brothers, and the forged deed by which 
the property had been conveyed from Jones to the 
first fictitious purchaser. The signature was after- 
wards proved, by comparison with the other papers, 
a forgery. 

‘^Now,” said the attorney, “did you ever reveal 
this fraudulent transaction to any one?” 

“Yes.” 

“To whom?” 

The witness hesitated. 

“Answer the question,” said the judge. 

A troubled expression passed over the old man’s 
face and he proceeded hesitatingly. 

“It was to the detective who discovered our op- 
erations and ran us down. I made a bargain with 
him after our arrest to reveal all our fraudulent 
transactions on condition that he would help me 
to escape. We both kept our part of the agree- 
ment. I remember that he said on the night that 
he let me out of jail, that he was going to look 
this case up right away.” 

“Is he living now?” 

“No, no, he is dead,” said the witness with a 
shudder, and his head dropped upon his breast. 

“Go on,” said the attorney. 

“A few weeks after my escape I landed in St* 


COLONEL HUNGERFORD’s DAUGHTER 


Louis, and in the first paper that I picked up I 
saw that he had been murdered on a road near 
this place.” 

Then before the court could check him, and as 
if speaking to himself in melancholy reflection, he 
said: 

“A man who has committed a crime will do al- 
most anything to cover it up.” 

The spectators had by this time become pre- 
pared for astounding revelations. But the tension 
of feeling produced by this last statement was too 
great to bear, and it was with much relief that they 
saw the old man dismissed from the witness stand. 

And thus closed this day of startling sensations. 

When Judge Barrier was sought for he could 
not be found. But afterwards it was learned that 
immediately upon leaving the court room in the 
morning, he drew a large sum of monej^ from the 
bank, was driven to a neighboring railroad station, 
and fled the. country, never to return. The people 
settled down to the conviction that the mystery of 
the murder at the old oak tree was at last solved. 
They believed that Barrier, knowing that the de- 
tective was on his track and would have him ar- 
rested for his connection with the fraudulent trans- 
fer of the Jones lands, had waylaid him in the 
woods that night on his return from the farmer’s, 
and had shot him from behind the tree. 


STARTLING DEVELOPMENTS 2^7 

But there was no way of proving his guilt, and 
no attempt was made to find him. Nor was the 
old witness prosecuted. His age and the impor- 
tant service which he had rendered in clearing up 
the case were deemed sufficient reasons for ex- 
empting him from prosecution. How much in this 
direction the prosecuting attorney had promised 
the young detective when telegraphing from the 
West, could only be surmised from the results. 

That night Congressman Clingman and his 
father were in consultation with the plaintiff’s at- 
torneys long after midnight. “ I believe the witness 
Dorset,” said the congressman. “Colonel Hun- 
gerford’s puichase was from the proper parties. 
But my father was victimized. There seems to be 
but one thing to do, and that is for you to with- 
draw your suit against the Hungerfords, and settle 
the case with us.” A proposition of compromise 
between the Jones heirs and Captain Clingman 
was then made and accepted. 

The next morning the suit was withdrawn, 
and thus the great case which had shaken the whole 
county was ended. 

Sammy Suddendrop’s reputation as a detective 
soared aloft, and he was the lion of the day. But 
Mrs. Hungerford told him that she wanted him to 
give up that kind of life, and help Helen with the 
growing business of the farm and mines. Sammy 


25S COLONEL HUNGERFORd’s DAUGHTER 

said that he had no*objection to dropping the pro- 
fession, now that he had run Judge Barrier out of 
the country and got even with Captain Clingman 
for keeping Colonel Hungerford out of Congress, 
But he said he meant to be sheriff of the county, 
and that before long. 

MR. STANVELT LINGERS AND CONGRESSMAN CLING- 
MAN HAS TROUBLE EXPLAINING. 

Mr. Stanvelt did not return to New York at 
once, but accepted Mrs. Hungerford’s invitation 
to stay another week. He said that he enjoyed 
the wideness of the western fields, the fresh air 
and the beautiful drives over the country roads, 
a remark that Sammy Suddendrop was still bojdsh 
enough to laugh at, for the weather was distress- 
ing!}' hot and dry and the roads filled with dust. He 
said that if Mr. Stanvelt wanted fresh air he would 
be off to Long Branch, but then it was nice to have 
such a fine New Yorker with them. They had 
had such a bad one in Shirley. 

The fact was that Mr. Stanvelt had been rapidly 
changing his mind about Helen’s being too ideal, 
and he told her so one day when they were return- 
ing from the coal mines. But he had not altered 
his opinion in regard to the difficulty of capturing 
such a prize. This, however, did not cool his de- 
sire to do so. The male heart does not work that 


STARTLING DEVELOPMENTS ^^9 

way. However, being a New Yorker, he was 
very cautious. 

Mrs. Hungerford was charmed with him, but 
her secret preference for John Clingman made 
her watch with some concern Helen’s regard for 
this man of culture, social qualities and strength of 
character. And he certainly was a man after Hel- 
en’s own heart, a young elder now in one of the 
great New York churches, superintendent of a 
mission Sunda3^-school, and the right-hand man of 
a host of benevolent societies and enterprises. Mr. 
Stanvelt believed in using wealth and position for 
something more than selfish purposes. 

But they parted as friends simply, and Helen’s 
mind was soon burdened with another matter of 
serious interest. 

The next day after Mr. Stanvelt’s departure she 
asked Sammy Suddendrop, with some concern, 
what Shirley meant when he was so hard pressed 
in the cross-examination and replied in such a 
sneering manner to one of Mr. Clingman’s ques- 
tions. “He said that Mr. Clingman knew why he 
left Millersburg so suddenly when he was threat- 
ening to enter suit against my father four years 
ago. What did he mean by that, Sammy?” 

“He meant just that, that Congressman Cling- 
man did know. Didn’t you notice how quickly 
John Clingman got away from that point?” 


26 o colonel hungerford’s daughter 

“Yes, there was something surprising about it. 
But I don’t understand. What did he mean by it?” 

“Shirley told me in New York,” replied Sam- 
m}^, after some hesitation, “that Captain Cling- 
man paid him a thousand dollars to take Nellie 
Millbrook back to New York, and in a hurry. We 
met them that evening in the storm.” 

“And that was Shirley? But why was Captain 
Clingman so eager to get Nellie away?” 

“ I have not wanted to tell you this, but now that 
you have asked me, Shirley says that it was be- 
cause the congressional convention was coming 
on, and Nellie could have spoken the word which 
would have ruined John Clingman’s chances for 
nomination.” 

Helen turned very pale, and Sammy left her, 
lost in reflection. The developments of the trial 
had been painful to her, but this was a blow which 
struck to the heart. 

When Mr. Clingman called again, she was so 
reserved that he asked her what was the matter. 
She replied: 

“I have a question to ask you which is very try- 
ing to me. 

“Why did your father pay Shirley a thousand 
dollars to take Nellie Millbrook back to New 
York?” 

“That is a trying question. Miss Hungerford,” 


STARTLING DEVELOPMENTS 


261 


he said after a painful silence, while the troubled 
look, which had not left his face since the trial, 
deepened. “I am afraid that I have no satisfactory 
answer to it. All I can say is this: Shirley went 
to my father with a story about Nellie Millbrook, 
and said Nellie was ready to back it up, and if 
they were not given a good round sum they would 
publish it and ruin my chances for Congress. 
Father said nothing to me about it, and I did not 
know it until after the nomination. But Judge 
Barrier advised him to pay the money and get 
them both away. At that time none of us knew 
the connection between Barrier and Shirley. But 
we know now that Shirley discovered something 
about Barrier’s history through Barney, and that 
for years he has been kept silent by Barrier’s 
money. 

“Father decided to pay the money and get them 
away, because he said it made no difference how 
false their story was, a lie traveled faster than the 
truth in a political campaign, and it would upset all 
his hopes. You know how much he had his heart 
set on my going to Congress.” 

“Yes, I do,” said Helen, a little severely. 
“Your father was willing to sacrifice too many 
other interests at that time.” 

“Afterwards,” continued Mr. Clingman, “the 
fellow came back and tried to get some money out 


262 COLONEL HUNGERFORD’s DAUGHTER 

of me, but I pitched him downstairs, and told him 
that I should send him to the penitentiary if he 
did not leave town.” 

“But he came back here the other day. How- 
ever, Mr. Clingman, I do not wish to criticise you, 
for you have been so kind to us and so manly and 
straightforward in all this trouble that my admira- 
tion for you has been very great. But this has been 
a great shock to me, and you cannot blame me for 
hesitating to express full satisfaction with your ex- 
planation. For, as a lawyer, you know that pay- 
ing hush money is a bad sign. It is hard to 
retrieve the situation after that.” 

“I know it, I know it. These wretched situa- 
tions in which men find themselves in politics are 
hard for a man with a sense of honor to bear.” 

He spoke these words in a tone of deep anguish, 
and then looked into Helen’s face longingly and 
pleadingly. 

It was the first time that she had seen a look of 
grief and humiliation in the face of this man, 
who had hardly known anything in life but success 
and applause. His keen sense of the position in 
which he had been placed appealed to her strongly. 
But she had found it hard to make it all seem 
clear, and she returned his appealing gaze with a 
look that had more of distress than confidence or 
affection in it. 


STARTLING DEVELOPMENTS 263 

“Nellie Millbrook’s mother,” she said, “has just 
died of a broken heart. It was a sad tragedy and 
a great wrong. The man whose name is connected 
with it cannot be connected with mine. I must 
have more light on this matter, Mr. Clingman.” 

“Miss Hungerford, I cannot blame you. But I 
have said all that I can say. Good-night.” 

And in a moment he was gone. 


CHAPTER XXIV. 


A YOUNG wife’s SORROW. 

There are times when whole families have their 
individual sorrows. Captain Clingman called the 
year of the trial the time of his visitation. He was 
a much humbler man afterwards, and dropped all 
political scheming John Clingman returned to 
Washington thinking it the worst summer he had 
ever passed through. More bitter still was the 
year to Mrs. Mildred Norwin. 

When married but little more than two years, 
she awoke to the most dismal and dreadful realiza- 
tion that ever smites the heart of a woman — that she 
was the wife of a drunkard. She had struggled 
hard to believe that when Lindell saw that his in- 
temperate habits were undoing him, he would assert 
his manhood and reform. But like most men who 
yield to drink, he could not be made to see danger 
approaching, or measure the evil of disaster when 
it came. He lost his fine position and salary, but 
kept right on drinking. Picking up occasional 
assignments here and there, he earned something, 
but even this little did not reach his home, and 
264 


A YOUNG wife’s SORROW 265 

Mildred found herself absolutely without support. 
To write to her parents for help was a recourse 
which she refused to consider for a moment. What 
would they think ? and why pain and humiliate them 
with the knowledge of her husband’s disgrace, 
when perhaps he might soon reform and all be 
well again? 

But something must be done, and she set herself 
bravely to do it. She moved again into cheaper 
quarters. Then she turned to that resort of mil- 
lions of impoverished women, the needle. With 
her talent and skill and fine taste, she soon began 
to support herself at dress-making. But when 
August came her little child, now a year old, 
was taken sick, and when it had recovered her 
strength was exhausted, and the loss of lime and 
expense had taken all her means. 

Once more she was compelled to seek a cheaper 
place, and this time in poor little rooms in a rear 
tenement. For in a great city like New York 
human beings are dashed about by the changing 
tide of their affairs like drift on the swollen waters 
of a rushing river. Those who are stranded only 
too often find themselves in strange, dark corners, 
which are to them little better than living graves, 
and to which, when playing in the bright fields in 
childhood, they could never have thought it pos- 
sible that they would come. 


266 COLONEL HUNGERFORD’s DAUGHTER 

As Mildred looked around her dark and dismal 
quarters and thought of the beautiful grounds and 
fields around her western home, of the abundance 
that filled the house, of the mother looking cheer- 
ily across the table, of the happy sisters springing 
into the carriage and laughingly driving awaj^, of 
her honored brother applauded by the multitude, 
and of her dearest friend, the companion of her 
childhood and her travels, in her abounding pros- 
perity and happiness; it seemed that her poor heart 
would break. But she must live for her sweet little 
daughter’s sake, for duty’s sake. And again she 
resolutely set herself to toil. But her strength was 
failing, and sickness came. She pleaded with Lin- 
dell when he was at home and prayed for him 
when he was gone. But he was in the grip of the 
demon of drink, and in this age of the world there 
is no worse grip than that. He was still kind, if 
such a word can be used of a man who impover- 
ishes his home by drink. He seemed to love her 
more than ever, and to cling to her, but he loved 
strong drink and clung to it, and that ruined all. 

When Christmas came it was jo3dess. Mildred 
had now begun to dispose of h*er jewelry and the 
beautiful dresses with which she began her mar- 
ried life. They brought little, but with that little 
she fought the battle against hunger and want un- 
til the end of this supply was at hand. As the third 


A YOUNG wife’s SORROW 


267 


anniversar}" of her marriage day approached she 
struggled long and hard with Lindell to reform. 
Deep into the night she pleaded with him, clinging 
to him on her knees and asking God to help him. 
He promised her that he would let the accursed 
.thing alone. But the next night he did not return, 
and the next he came home intoxicated. She 
looked at him as he lay'^cross the bed in his 
drunken sleep, at the handsome face and fine fore- 
head, at the thin lips that had so often spoken the 
brilliant words that charmed the social circle, and 
she loved and pitied him. Then she looked at her 
sleeping babe, its little face fast losing its cherub- 
like beauty and becoming pinched and blue with 
w'ant. And her thoughts strove with one another. 
“I could die with him,” she said, “but I must 
not let the child die.” 

Suffocated b}^ the sense of her great trial, she 
threw up the little window to catch a breath of 
fresh air. A steamship was coming up the river 
from the sea, and she thought of that last night 
of the voyage w'hen she gave her heart to Lindell, 
and of the strange misgivings which came over 
her as she heard the whistles sounding in the fog, 
and the booming of the cannon far off in the 
night. 

“I know it now,” she said, “ they were sounding 
the alarm for me. My poor little ship was sailing 
toward a rock.” 


268 COLONEL HUNGERFORD’s DAUGHTER 

After walking the floor a long time she said: 
‘‘All must not be lost. My pride must bend, and 
I must take the last dreaded step in humiliation.” 

She sank down upon the bed beside her hus- 
band, and slept until morning. Then she told Lin- 
dell that she was going home to her father. He 
looked terror-stricken,^ but there was no strength 
or hope for her in his pleading voice. As he 
passed out of the door he turned and looked lov- 
ingly and beseechingly at her and said: “Mildred, 
darling, I shall soon be a better man.” 

In an hour more Mildred was looking her scant 
possessions over for something to sell or pawn for 
money to purchase her railroad ticket. There was 
but one thing left, a beautiful and costly jewel 
which Helen had sent her from Paris as a wedding 
present. She had clung to it tenaciousl}^ through 
all her want. But with a heartbroken sob she 
took it up and passed out of the door. 

At noon she wrote a note — on which the tears 
fell — for Lindell, and laid it upon the table; and 
taking her child in her arms, went down the old 
and soiled stairway. When the shadows of even- 
ing came, and Lindell was again groping slowly 
up this stairway, Mildred was far out of the city, 
on her way to her father’s home. 

As the train approached Millersburg the next 
night, the troubled young mother drew her child 


A YOUNG WIFE*S SORROW 269 

closer to her breast, dropped her veil over her face, 
and strove hard to keep back the tears. 

‘‘It is the anniversary of our wedding day,” she 
said to herself. “How awful the contrast from 
that night when I went away the happiest of 
brides!” 

It was half-past ten when the train stopped, and 
there was no one on the platform to recognize her. 
After some hesitation and grumbling, a hackman 
consented to take her out to Captain Clingman’s. 
She gave him her last money, and took the seat 
behind him. “It is a dark and bad night to go so 
far at this late hour,” said the man. “You will 
need to wrap the child up well.” But already the 
little thing was tucked away in more wraps than 
the loving young mother* could well spare from 
herself. 

When they came near the Hungerford home, 
Mildred saw the light still streaming from Helen’s 
window. For she was intending to start for New 
York the next day, and her preparations had kept 
her up later than usual. 

“Oh, that happy girl!” thought Mildred ; “what 
would she think if she knew who was passing, and 
wh}^?” And she sobbed convulsively. The man 
spoke to her and said their dismal drive would soon 
be over. But as they came opposite the gate 
through which Mildred had so often passed, to 


270 COLONEL HUNGERFORD’s DAUGHTER 

go tripping up the walk and fly into Helen’s arms, 
the flood of past recollections was more than she 
could bear, and she swooned and fell forward. 
The driver tried to arouse her, but becoming 
greatly alarmed he called to the house for assist- 
ance. Helen heard his call, threw a shawl over 
her head and hurried down to the gate. 

“I have a woman here,” he said, ‘‘a stranger 
whom I was taking out to Captain Clingman’s 
and she fainted.” 

“Lift her out quickly,” said Helen. “Bring 
her into the house.” 

“There is a little child too.” 

“Let me take it, and you carry her.” 

And Helen took the precious little burden in 
her arms and ran up th? walk, while the man came 
after, bearing Mildred. He laid her down in the 
hall under the dim light. Helen hurriedly brought a 
glass of water, drew back the veil, looked into the 
face and uttered a cry of agony. The man caught 
the glass from her trembling hand and sprinkled 
the water over the white face. Mildred opened 
her eyes, gazed about in a bewildered manner, 
and closed them again. Mrs. Hungerford now ap- 
peared, and they carried her to Helen’s room and 
placed her on the bed. When she became con- 
scious and a look of recognition passed over her 
face, Helen bent over her and smothered her with 
kisses, while the tears dropped upon her face. 


A YOUNG wife’s SORROW 


271 


When the man was leaving, Helen, who knew 
him as a trusty, reticent man, handed him a bank 
note, saying: “This is something extra for your 
trouble. But you are not to breathe a word of 
what has happened to-night to anybody.” 

It was some days before Mildred was able to 
leave her bed. But Helen or her mother watched 
at her side constantly, and they were hardly willing 
to leave the pretty child out of their arms. 

While these days went by, Mildred told them all. 

“It is an awful blight to fall so soon on one’s 
young wifehood,” she said. 

But hope was not yet dead in her heart, and 
with yearning she still looked toward the future. 
She had pleaded that no word might be sent to her 
home, and she shrank from this last step as the 
greatest trial of all. 

At the end of a week Helen told her of her de- 
ferred trip to New York, that she was going for a 
double business purpose, to investigate a purchase 
of some important mining machinery, and to look 
in:o a scheme which Mr. Stanvelt had suggested 
to her for bringing out some families in the city 
to the farm and the mines. She was also to enjoy a 
visit with her aunt, who had returned from Paris. 

“You will try to see Lindell, won’t you?” said 
Mildred. “Perhaps you can say the word that 
will help to bring him back to himself, and 1 shall 


272 COLONEL HUNGERFORd’s DAUGHTER 

pray. It is very hard for me to think of your see- 
ing our wretched home, but that is where you may 
find him.” 

When Helen left for New York it was agreed 
that no word was to be spoken of Mildred’s pres- 
ence in their house until her return. 


CHAPTER XXV. 


SAVING A MAN FROM THE DEVIL. 

It was just two weeks after the day on which 
Mildred left the note on her table — a note sweet 
and kind, but one which scorched Lindell Nofwin’s 
heart and conscience like fire — that a carriage 
stopped in front of a long row of tenement houses 
on West Thirty-fifth Street, New York. Helen 
Hungerford alighted, and passing through the 
narrow little passage, ascended the stairway of the 
rear tenement. Stopping at a back door on the 
top floor, she knocked. It was ten o’clock in the 
morning, but Lindell Norwin was still at home, 
mostly because he had nothing to do, but partly be- 
cause it had been the home of his wife and child, 
and he still clung to the hope that she might 
change her mind and come back to him. 

He was sober, but not looking much like the 
Lindell Norwin of former da3^s. His embarrass- 
ment was so great that he did not take the hand 
which was held out to him, but dropped back into 
a chair, and left Helen standing in the door. She 
made no delay in delivering her message to him, 
273 


274 COLONEL HUNGERFORD’s DAUGHTER 

and it was a message to his manhood, his heart, 
his conscience, and his religious convictions. For 
she felt that she had come to him armed like an 
old prophet, with all their past associations to give 
entrance, point and power to her words. 

“You would better have been killed on the bat- 
tlefield with El wood,” she said, “or died at Rome. 
You were spared, but surely not to sacrifice a 
beautiful wife and child and your own manhood 
and everything on the altar of drink. Your 
mother loved 3^ou with a great love, and your father 
toiled in heat and cold to educate you, and you 
reward them with shame. Friends gathered 
around you, friends good and true, and cheered 
you and blessed you, and you have turned your 
back upon them for the wretched, drunken com- 
panions of the bar-room. Oh, the shame, the 
wickedness, and the meanness of it!” 

Lindell Norwin never before heard Helen speak 
except in soft and gentle tones, and her words ter- 
rified him. He shrank from her flashing eyes, 
and sank low in his chair. 

Then she changed her voice into a more pitying 
tone and said: 

“The prodigal son came to himself. You are 
not yourself now. Your real self was the Lindell 
Norwin whom everybod}^ loved at school, who 
stood like a hero in the shock of battle, who was 


SAVING A MAN FROM THE DEVIL 275 

the pride of his profession a few years ago. Come 
back to that self, Lindell, come back.” 

Her voice choked with sobs, and the tears started 
down his cheeks. 

“Miss Hungerford, I have tried hard to come 
back since Mildred went away. I did not know 
before that any human being could suffer such 
agony of heart as I suffered when I read her note. 
I looked around this miserable room, and the 
loneliness was awful. When she was here it seemed 
beautiful in spite of its poverty, but now it is like 
death and yet I cannot bear to leave it. She could 
not stay. It was right for her to go. But, oh, my 
God, if I could let this cursed drink alone! Ever}" 
morning I have said I would, and every night I 
have come home drunk. 

“I got out the Bible that mother gave me, for I 
threw away her doctrines, but not her Bible. I 
could not do that, because it was her gift. And I 
read some of the passages which she had marked, 
but they only made me feel worse, and here I am — 
a drunkard. That is the awful truth.” His frame 
shook convulsively, and he sobbed like a child. 

Helen took the Bible and turned to a verse 
which his mother had marked. It said: “Where- 
soever the devil taketh him, it teareth him.” 

“Wherever he takes you,” she said “he tears 
you. He has done nothing but tear you ever 


2^6 COLONEL HUNGERFORD’s DAUGHTER 

since he got his satanic grip on you. He has torn 
you in 3^our home; he has torn 3’ou in your pro- 
fession; he has torn you from your friends ; he has 
torn the beauty of your manhood and your Io3^alty 
as a husband; he has torn all the joy out of 3^our 
life, and is tearing all the hope out of your heart. 

“ But listen, Lindell ; Christ called this young man 
to him and ‘as he was yet coming,’ it says, ‘the 
devil threw him down.’ But that was the devil’s 
last throw. If you will come to that same Christ, 
the devil can never throw you down again. You 
will come, won’t 3"ou, Lindell?” 

Her earnestness took hold upon him like the 
voice of God. He clasped his hands hard, and 
beads of perspiration stood upon his forehead. 
Every man has his hour of supreme choice. This 
was Lindell Norwin’s hour of destiny, of lasting 
shame, or of hope and honor, of the right hand 
or the left at the throne. He arose and said: 

“I will come to that Christ. Pray for me as Mil- 
dred prayed.” They dropped upon their knees 
and pra3^ed together. 

When they arose there was a manly look in his 
face. Lindell Norwin had come to himself. He 
never left himself again, but was a man from that 
hour. A month later he was rejoicing with his 
wife and child in a new home, and their happiness 
and prosperity greatened with the years. Mildred’s 


SAVING A MAN FROM THE DEVIL 277 

sorrowful journey was a secret which remained 
locked in the hearts of those who loved her. 

On the Sunday which followed this interview 
Helen accepted an invitation from Mr. Stanvelt to 
visit the mission Sunday-school of which he was 
superintendent. Having attended service in the 
morning at her aunt’s fashionable church on the 
avenue, she now had an opportunity to study the 
religious aspects of the great city in sharp con- 
trast. This was a congested district in which the 
families lived in tiers and children swarmed and 
multiplied in proportion to the poverty of the par- 
ents. For it is the way of the world that children 
increase or decrease in inverse proportion to the 
ability of the parents to provide for their wants. 
And similarly the provision made by the churches 
for the spiritual wants of the people runs the wrong 
way of proportion. 

The effect of the contrast was painful to Helen, 
as it usually is to those who have not become too 
familiar with the ready explanations by which all 
such things are justified in an age determined to 
think well of itself. 

“I presume,” she said to Mr. Stanvelt, ‘‘that 
there is a reason for all this difference between 
rich and poor in church matters, why so much 
more should be done on the avenues where the 
people seem better than on the side streets where 
they seem worse.” 


278 COLONEL HUNGERFORd’s DAUGHTER 

“It is a matter that troubles me much,” was the 
repl}’. “But churches seem like all other living or- 
ganizations. It is the nature of everything that 
lives and grows to adapt itself to its environment, 
and to feed and enlarge itself on what surrounds 
it. The church, so far as it follows a law of nature, 
slips into the way of building up itself. Its own 
growth, strength and importance become the ob- 
ject. It selects a good corner,very much as a busi- 
ness house does, preferring what it calls a good 
neighborhood, nice people, a good class of people, 
who will readily come to the services. If the neigh- 
borhood is fashionable the church becomes fash- 
ionable. If the good people move out of the 
neighborhood and go up-town, the church sighs a 
little, wrings its hands a little, and then follows 
them. In a word, the church finds itself in the 
grip of a law of organic life, and laws are hard 
things to struggle against. All organization builds 
for itself.” 

“But the gospel is not of law, but of grace. 
Perhaps the church needs more grace.” 

“No doubt of that. But the reign of grace has 
not 3^et set in, that is largely. It is a nice sound- 
ing word, but when you come to put it on and tr}’ 
to wear it every day in this fierce competition and 
mad rush of a great city, it cramps the limbs and 
hinders the pace. But our church does try to do 
something more than live for itself. It has had this 


SAVING A MAN FROM THE DEVIL 279 

mission for years, and has spent a good deal of 
money on it.” 

“But how much love has it spent on it? I beg 
your pardon, but it is so much easier for rich people 
to give away money than heart to the poor. If 
every dollar’s worth of bread that has been given 
had meant a dollar’s w'orth of heart, wouldn’t the 
world be better to-day? I have found in the little 
good that I have tried to do, that in charity the 
only money worth a hundred cents on the dollar 
is that which is minted in the heart.” 

“I knew that you had something which makes 
your work more successful than mine.” 

“Oh, no, I am delighted with your great school, 
and I have been wishing that I had such hundreds 
of boys and girls, and all these masses of people 
around me. It would be the joy of my life* to 
have such a field as this to work in.” 

And Helen turned with smiling enthusiasm to- 
wards Mr. Stanvelt. 

He looked at her so earnestly and searchingly 
that she was saved from blushing confusion only 
by the interruption of the secretary, who reminded 
the superintendent that it was time to close the 
lesson hour. She had a very embarrassing feeling 
that she had made a mistake. It would have been 
so easy for Helen Hungerford to become connected 
with that great field of labor. 


CHAPTER XXVL 


HELEN HAS A GLIMPSE OF THE TWO-FOLD FACTOR. 

Sometimes we get new and strange glimpses of 
ourselves when we are away from home. There 
is in the one self such a variety of selves — the inner 
self, the outer self, the better self, the worse self, 
the self at home, the self away from home, the self 
loved and the self condemned — that we need some- 
times to take ourselves out of the long-time setting 
and survey all sides of our personality in a new 
light. Such a view shows us, at least, how much 
of us is mere environment and how much actual 
self for all places. We see, too, this real substance 
of our personality, not through our own eyes only, 
but through the eyes of the new multitude about 
us. 

Helen Hungerford found herself passing through 
an experience of this kind before she had more 
than half finished her stay in New York. She had 
never been given to introspection, but had kept 
her eyes toward the world and its men and wom- 
en, eager to know and interpret all. Her mother’s 
life had been to her such a light on the way, the 
280 


A GLIMPSE OF THE TWO-FOLD FACTOR 28 1 

first great principles of religious character had 
asserted themselves so readily and strongly, and 
her own thoughts and resolutions came to her so 
quickly, that she had never felt the need of search- 
ing herself to find out what she was, or of labori- 
ously framing laws of self-government. 

But now there was dawning upon her a new 
sense of herself. She was daily meeting new peo- 
ple, strong, well-poised, self-reliant people. Her 
aunt, who had a trifle too much worldl}^ ambition, 
was fully alive to the advantages of a beautiful and 
brilliant niece, and kept her in a round of social 
functions and in constant contact with a splendid 
company of friends. But it was Mr. Stanvelt’s 
earnest attention that most awakened the new sense 
of self. She realized, as never before, her woman- 
hood. Not even when John Clingman stood look- 
ing imploringly into her face did she have such a 
vivid sense of the fact that woman cannot reckon 
with herself alone, that she has to take man into the 
account. And this does not mean man in the ab- 
stract,but a man. Here was a man of splendid type, 
with ideas of life much like her own, a man estab- 
lished in principle,in his social relations and habits, 
in business, home and friends. And there is some- 
thing very substantial in the prospect of house and 
home presented by such a man and such a wealthy 
and well-recognized family as the Stanvelts. This 


282 COLONEL IIUNGERFORD’s DAUGHTER 

would be no putting to sea in an uncertain craft. 
At the same time she knew what his feelings to- 
ward her were. The look which so much confused 
her on the Sunday afternoon was not one which 
she cared to analyze, but one which she let stand 
for what it meant to her woman’s instinct. She 
knew that it was a time for the bottom wisdom of 
her woman’s heart. 

But Helen Hungerford felt a conflicting emo- 
tion. She realized that during her stay in New 
York she had been almost constantly looking for 
a face. On Broadwa}^ that greatest highway of 
human feet in the world, along which passes the 
longest daily procession, she glanced into the 
thousands of strange faces, but not to see the one 
she sought. 

LOOKING FOR A LOST FACE. 

“Helen, you always seem to be looking for 
somebody,” said her aunt one day. 

“I know it,” was the reply, “and I hope that 
I shall find her.” 

She said nothing more, but as they were passing 
down the street the next day in a carriage, she ut- 
tered a little cr}^ of surprise, and called to the dri- 
ver to stop at the curb. Before her aunt had time 
to catch her breath Helen threw open the door and 
sprang to the walk. But the throng was great. 


A GLIMPSE OF THE TWO FOLD FACTOR 283 

and before she could reach the young woman she 
w'as gone. It was Nellie Millbrook, the one per- 
son whom Helen Hungerford wanted most of all to 
meet. 

With her new introspection she had come to feel 
that she ought to be sure of her ground with John 
Clingman. If it was not for her to lift the shadow 
which his father’s action had thrown over him, 
yet it was not a recognized principle that a man 
must prove his own innocence. More than once 
she had tossed her head, and said to herself that it 
did not matter whether it was cleared up or not, 
that they could get along very well as neighbors 
without any explanation. But she had found that 
this was one of the things which could not be dis- 
missed with a toss of her head. For she realized 
now, for the first time, that she was not fully master 
of herself. Her next determination was to settle 
her doubts, and to do this Nellie Millbrook was nec- 
essary. 

Helen’s disappointment, therefore, was great, 
when the one for whom she had been looking was 
lost to view. The days passed and the time for 
her departure was drawing near. She felt reluc- 
tant to go with out settling the doubt which so much 
disturbed her. 

“I must find her, if possible,” she said, “and it 
does seem possible. It may be, it ought to be, that 


284 COLONEL HUNGERFORd’s DAUGHTER 

Nellie’s early training will have some influence and 
bring her to some of these rescue homes.” 

The next morning she took a carriage, without 
telling her aunt her object, and spent the day in 
visiting homes and missions, and making inquiries 
among missionary visitors. In the evening she 
returned weary and disappointed. But there was 
one little clue to which she attached a kind of for- 
lorn hope. 

After dinner she ordered a carriage again, and 
visited the mission which had given her the little 
hope. Taking her place near the door, she eagerly 
scanned the face of each woman who entered. But 
the face which she wanted to see did not appear. 

Shortly after breakfast the next morning a lady 
from the mission called. She said she had been 
sent by a woman who wanted to see her, and who 
might be the person for whom she was looking. 
“She began to come to our mission last summer,” 
said the visitor. “It was reported that she had 
just heard of the death of her mother, and she 
seemed much affected. She has come occasionally 
ever since. But we have never been able to pre- 
vail upon her to speak of herself or to take any 
decided step. We do not even know her name.” 

“Will you take me to her?” said Helen, rising. 

“I cannot, but with your permission, she will 
visit you this afternoon.” 


A GLIMPSE OF THE TWO-FOLD FACTOR 285 

In the afternoon Nellie Millbrook came, not the 
prett}^ school-girl who once twined roses in little 
Helen Hungerford’s hair, but a wrecked woman 
whose life had been hidden from her friends. 

Helen could not conceal her emotion, as she 
greeted her old schoolmate and led her to a chair. 

“ I have struggled hard with myself,” she said, 
in a voice that had lost all its music, and was hard 
and cold, “to keep away from you. For while I 
wanted to see you and speak to you, piide and 
shame still had some hold on me. I knew you 
wanted to see me, for it was so like your kindness 
of heart, and I saw you spring from the carriage 
that day, but I hurried on. Last night I saw you at 
the mission, through the door, but when I recog- 
nize you I went away. I could not meet you there. 

“I think I know wh}^ you want to see me. For 
I have heard some cruel things. They have called 
me an adventuress, but I never w'as. I have been 
cruel only to myself. No money was paid to me 
to leave Millersburg. It all went to that bad man, 
who has done so many wrong things, and added so 
much to my trouble. 

“I went back to the old neighborhood, because 
they told me my mother wanted to see me. I sat 
on the little bench in the woods, where you used 
to see me sit, and waited in the night for a message 
to come from my mother. But it did not come, 


286 COLONEL HUNGERFORD’s DAUGHTER 

and I cried bitterly. When it was too late I learned 
that they had deceived me, and mother knew 
nothing about it, or about my waiting for her. 
There was a double plot, to get money ior Shir- 
le}^, and some political scheme, what, I do not 
know.” 

“But tell me,” said Helen with increasing emo- 
tion, “was there any one there who needed to be 
afraid of what you could tell of the past?” 

“Yes.” 

“Who?” 

It was with agonizing suspense that Helen 
awaited the answer to this question. 

“That is a question that I have never answered.” 

“Answer it now, Nellie, for the sake of the little 
Helen whom you used to love.” 

“I love you now, Helen, as much as a heart 
like mine can love.” 

“Tell me then, tell me,” she cried, clasping her 
hands. 

“The man who went to his death with your 
father.” 

Helen sank back in her chair, covered her face 
with her hands and sobbed. A dark shadow had 
suddenly lifted from her heart. She saw it all, 
that Captain Clingman dreaded a revelation from 
which he could save his son only by letting it fall 
on the man who stood next to his son, and that 
man the one who had saved her father’s life. 


A GLIMPSE OF THE TWO-FOLD FACTOR 287 

“Tell me of my mother,” said the poor woman, 
when Helen had recovered her composure. “How 
I wanted to see her! Often in my dreams I went 
back to the old gate, looked across the flower-beds 
into my mother’s face as she sat upon the portico, 
just as she used to do when I came from school. 
But when I tried to open the gate it was barred. 

“And it has been so with all the gates of the 
past. They have all been barred. Oh, how often 
I have wished that I could unlock the gates of 
time and go back to my girlhood and have the 
right hand and the left before me again ! But these 
fatal, awful steps! You have read of God’s con- 
demnation of sin in the Bible, j^ou have heard the 
preacher picture His wrath against it, and you have 
seen its blight and curse on those around \^ou, but 
you have never felt that curse in your own soul, 
the fierce agony of knowing that you yourself are 
the one whom it has destroyed. I have. A sor- 
rowing woman can ease her grief with tears, but 
tears avail nothing for a lost woman.” 

“Please don’t talk so, Nellie; you will break 
my heart. I love you still.” 

“It is just like the little Helen of old for you to 
say so. But it is too late for love. There is a 
great gulf between us. I have only one wish now, 
and that is to be laid beside my mother when I 
die, and that will be soon. Good-bye.” 


288 COLONEL HUNGERFORD’s DAUGHTER 

And she hurried away. They never met again, 
but Helen handed the pastor of the mission a check 
and told him that when Nellie Millbrook died, 
which could not be long hence, he should send the 
body back to its old home. Three months later a cof- 
fin was taken from the train at Millersburg, Helen 
and her mother and a few of the neighbors follow'ed 
it to the cemetery, and the wanderer was laid at 
rest beside her mother. The grass grew over her 
grave, the rains and snows fall upon it, and the 
stars look down from the sky above as upon other 
graves, while the years roll into eternity and the 
revelation of all things approaches. 


CHAPTER XXVII. 


THE LITTLE RIFT WITHIN THE LUTE. 

With the close of the session in March John 
Clingman retired from Congress. To the great 
disappointment of his friends, he had refused a re- 
nomination the previous autumn. In answer to 
their protests he said that he could not afford to 
stay in Congress when he could make four or five 
times as much in his profession. 

“I shall take a vacation,” he said, “until I am 
better able to support political honors. A man 
can’t be honest and make money in politics, and 
I have not yet reached such a pitch of patriotism 
as to be willing to be poor all my life for the sake 
of supplying the farmers with garden seeds and 
patent reports, and of getting political appoint- 
ments for the townspeople.” 

To his father he said, rather bitterly, that there 
were too many complications in politics, too man}’ 
unfortunate situations in which a man felt that his 
honor was being rubbed off. His father connected 
these remarks with the fact that his resolution 
to retire from Congress was suddenly taken after 
289 


290 COLONEL HUNGERFORd’s DAUGHTER 

his interview with Helen Hungerford, and con- 
cluded quietly, but sorrowfully, that his own action 
in the past had something to do with it. He also 
noticed his son’s change of tone respecting Helen. 
He seemed annoyed or replied testil}^ when spoken 
to about her, and the family recognized that with 
John she had become a forbidden subject. During 
the winter there were rumors that he was to marry 
a rich senator’ sdaughter, and his friends were 
disposed to accept the report as something more 
than mere rumor. They had also come to think 
it one of the strong probabilities of the future that 
Helen Hungerford would change her residence to 
New York. 

After his return from Washington Mr. Cling- 
man was busy with important cases in the supreme 
court, and was away from home much of the time. 

The summer was passing, and he had not met 
Helen since their painful interview. When she 
wrote him, after seeing Nellie Millbrook, acknowl- 
edging the verification of his explanation, and assur- 
ing him of her confidence, he did not answer her 
letter, and the rift within the lute widened. They 
both became conscious that they were standing on 
opposite banks of a stream, which each was too 
spirited to attempt to bridge. 

Thus matters stood when one day in August Mr. 
Clingman and his father were driving out home 


THE LITTLE RIFT WITHIN THE LUTE 29 1 

together. As they turned a bend in the road the 
captain said: 

‘‘Jack, there comes the span of blacks. We are 
going to meet Miss Hungerford, and I want to 
speak to her about a little matter of business. Now 
don’t brace yourself and act as stiff as a telegraph 
pole.” 

Helen was doing her own driving, and when 
the captain waved his hand she brought her horses 
to a stand. The captain’s business seemed to his 
son rather trivial, and he had good reason to think 
that it was only a pretext for something else. But 
before he had time to reflect upon the matter, Hel- 
en said: 

“I have been wishing to see you, Mr. Cling- 
man. We want you to do us a favor. A man 
whose family we helped through the winter, and 
to whom we gave work in the spring, has been get- 
ting drunk and beating his wife. Half a dozen 
wives up and down Coal Creek have been beaten 
by their husbands this summer, and we mean to 
put a stop to it. Our ladies’ league has taken up 
this matter, and it is our intention to see what vir- 
tue there is in the law. We want you to take hold 
of this case and put such a fright on these wife- 
beaters that there won’t be any more of it.” 

“Where is the prosecuting attorney?” 

“I do not know. Drawing his salary, I presume. 


292 COLONEL HUNGERFORd’s DAUGHTER 

But if I can get you to promise your service, I 
know where you will be, and where that brutal 
fellow will be, when you get through with him.” 

“Thank you for your confidence. I take it as 
a compliment to a bachelor. You do not think that 
a married man would prosecute a wife-beater with 
much zeal, do j^ou?” 

Helen laughed and replied: “Ask your father; 
he is a married man.” 

“But I do not practice in a justice’s court,” said 
the lawyer. 

“Of course not, being a statesman, and the pride 
of the bar,” said Helen airily. “But waive all that 
in this case, for woman’s sake.” 

“You women are peculiar,” he replied. “If a 
man gets drunk and disciplines his wife a little, 
you all pounce down on him and want him pillor- 
ied. But if he had been a sober man, and killed 
his wife, 3^ou would have carried bouquets to his 
cell every day.” 

“And you lawyers would have tried to prove 
that black is white to save him. And your hon- 
orable judges on the supreme bench would have 
hunted law and precedents up hill and down in 
search of a little technicality or loophole to let 
him through.” 

“Perhaps we’d better put men off the bench and 
put women on,” 


THE LITTLE RIFT WITHIN THE LUTE 


293 


“If you do, women will be able to see a barn as 
well as the barn door. But you will help us, won’t 
you ?” 

“If I do, and put a stop to wife-beating, your 
next woman’s move will be to ask me to stop hus- 
bands from smoking.” 

Helen laughed so merrily over this remark that 
John Clingman felt its infection and relaxed 
enough to say that he would see about it. She 
knew what this meant in his case, and thanking 
him heartily, drove away. 

“She grows more handsome every year,” said 
the captain, as they passed on, “and more popu- 
lar.” But there was no reply. “Four years ago,” 
continued the captain, “I could not have believed 
it possible for one young woman to have such an 
influence over the people of this county.” But his 
son only looked away at the leaves of the corn 
curled up by the heat. “She has helped to or- 
ganize a debating club or patriotic league or some- 
thing in every schoolhouse.” The captain looked 
in John’s face again, but the latter refused to re- 
spond. “She has had a variety of titles,” said the 
captain, with animation. “She has been called 
‘Girl Superintendent,’ ‘Coal Baroness,’ ‘Saint 
Helen,’ ‘Temperance Terror,’ and now I wonder 
when she will be called a wife.” 

“It is warm, father,” said John. 

And the captain gave it up. 


COLONEL HUNGERFORD’s DAUGHTER 


A BETTER BOND. 

A few days after this conversation John Cling- 
man said to his partner: “We must go out to Coal 
Creek this afternoon and take the deposition of a 
woman who is about to die. She is the most im- 
portant witness in that big railroad damage case, 
and we must have her evidence before she is be- 
yond the reach of a summons. It is to the interest 
of her own family too.” 

With a notary and a lawyer on the other side of 
the case, they were soon in a carriage and on the 
way to Coal Creek. At the grocery store on the 
corner Clingman asked the man who waited on 
customers when there were any, and sat in the 
shade the rest of the time, to point out the woman’s 
residence. “She lives up there, where you see the 
buggy and black horses,” he said. “That’s how 
we know when somebody’s sick out here. If the 
black horses stop to a house there’s pretty apt to be 
somebody sick there. Miss Hungerford is always 
where she is needed.” 

“How long is she likely to stay?” 

“Don’t know; she was there all night last night 
and she came over again about an hour ago.” 

“We shall wait a while.” 

And the lawyers went down the hill to one of 
the mines. While they were gone Helen came out 
and told the boy to take the carriage home and 


THE LITTLE RIFT WITHIN THE LUTE 


come back for her at 9 o’clock, and then went 
back into the house. 

When the lawyers came up the hill, they saw 
that the carriage was gone, and went to the 
house. John Clingman was much embarrassed 
when he saw Helen at the woman’s bedside fan- 
ning her. But his partner relieved the situation by 
stepping forward and explaining their mission to 
Helen, who had risen with a blush and a look of 
inquiry on her face. Then she put her arm under 
the poor woman’s head and supported her while 
she briefly gave her testimony. 

John Clingman glanced into Helen’s face as he 
thanked her, and their eyes met. It was only for 
a moment. But when glances meet, moments 
sometimes mean years. The eye, which in an in- 
stant of time looks across the millions of miles that 
lie between us and the planets, may as quickly 
look up and down the thoughts and emotions of 
a human spirit. 

When they were in the carriage again, his part- 
ner said to him: 

“Clingman,! don’t see why you and Miss Hun- 
gerford both needed to blush.” 

“We didn’t need to, that is, she didn’t; but 
when a half-dozen lawyers invade a dying wom- 
an’s room, a little blushing embarrassment is be- 
coming to them. I am not quite so much hardened 
as the rest of you.” 


296 COLONEL HUNGERFORD^S DAUGHTER 

“Perhaps not, but I was not so much hardened 
as not to wonder what her testimony about you 
would be in that higher court to which she is go- 
ing.” 

“I know what her testimony will be about that 
3^oung woman who was at her bedside,” said the 
notary. “‘I was sick and she visited me.’” 

“You‘ are right,” said the partner. “And the 
Judge will say, ‘Inasmuch as ye did it unto one 
of the least of these.’” 

Clingman was silent. But they could not tell 
whether he was weaving the woman’s testimonj^ 
int ) the case or was doing some serious reflecting. 
He was doing some serious reflecting. 

There are times when the man who has been 
reared in the freedom of the fields and forests, 
longs to escape from the worry of business and 
the confusion of voices around him to the lonely 
places where the trees stand up in silence or the 
streams wind quietly down the valley. 

It was in such a mood as this that John Cling- 
man said to his partner the next morning, “I am 
going to the woods to-day to rest.” 

He drove down into the little forest which lay 
between his father’s home and the coal mines, and 
passing into an unfrequented road, stopped at an 
inviting grass plat over which the branches of a 
lu'ighboring tree threw their passing shade. He 


THE LITTLE RIFT WITHIN THE LUTE 


dropped upon the grass, and under the spell of 
the music of softly rustling leaves and twittering 
birds was soon in deep musing over the past and 
himself. He had always gone forward like an en- 
gine which is on the track with its train attached, 
and whose master has nothing to do but pull the 
throttle and let it go. Onward and upward he had 
mounted at a speed which surprised himself more 
than it did his friends. To them he seemed to be 
born for hard work and high achievement. But 
now for the first time he was painfully wrestling 
with himself. There had come into his mind a 
nameless presence, thoughts that threw him into 
confusion, and he hardl}^ knew where to reach for 
a solution, or for mastery. 

In the midst of his reverie he heard the sound 
of a horse’s hoofs. It was cantering toward him 
on the dim road. In a moment more it saw him, 
shied, and came to a full stop. Rising up, he saw 
Helen Hungerford’s face turned toward him. 

“Why, Mr. Clingman, is this you?” she ex- 
claimed, while the color came and went in her 
face. 

“Yes,” he replied. “I came out here to-daj’ 
to have a visit with myself, to get back to my boy- 
hood.” 

“I am sorry that I disturbed you, but I took this 
road because it is shaded. Good-day.” 


298 COLONEL HUNGERFORD’s' UAU'Gttl’ER * 

“Oh, do not go,” he exclaimed. “I think the 
stars must have sent you this way. This is the 
third time that I have met 3"ou within the last few 
days when I did not expect it.” 

“The stars should attend to their own duties and 
not plot the unexpected.” 

“They are doing well. But I have had a very 
bad opinion of myself since I met you yesterday.” 

“ How unfortunate that you should have met 
me!” 

“No, that is not it. But how unfortunate that I 
should be compelled to think so much worse of 
myself when I compare myself with you I There 
was a world of difference between your motive 
and mine for being in that d3dng woman’s room.” 

“It was a little thing that I should be fanning 
a sick woman.” 

“But the little things are the greatest proofs of 
principle. ‘Inasmuch as ye did it unto one of the 
least of these,’ is the principle of the eternal judg- 
ment.” 

“But you were there on professional duty.” 

“I know that, but practicing a profession for 
success and money, and following principles 
through day and night, in sick rooms and parlors, 
whether there is criticism or applause, are two very 
different things.” 

“ I see that I have an able lawyer on my side this 


THE LITTLE RIFT WITHIN THE LUTE < 299 


morning. I wish you had as good an attorney to 
speak for you.” 

“He could never explain away the evidence of 
yesterday afternoon that your theory and practice 
of life are immensely better than mine. It settled 
the matter with me. You have used your advan- 
tages for others and I have used mine for personal 
success. Call it altruism, old-fashioned religion or 
what not, or let men say what they will about mir- 
acles and prophecies, this doing good to the least 
speaks for itself. It stands against all contradic- 
tions, all scoffs and skepticism.” 

“But the miracles and the prophecies, angel vis- 
its and messages from heaven, are the garden in 
which the flower grows and blooms into beauty. 
The world cannot have the one without the other.” 

“I know it. I am not one of those who believe 
that you can build a temple on a puff of air. There 
is certainly as much connection between deep 
conviction and high character,as between the roots 
of a tree and its topmost branches. I know that 
your life is the fruit of the convictions in which 
you were cradled and to which you have so te- 
naciousl}^ clung,” 

“You overestimate me. But your ideal is right. 
What will the end be?” 

“I shall try your theory.” 

Helen turned her eyes upon him as if searching 


300 COLONEL. HUNGERFORd's DAUGHTER 

the depths of his soul. In his strong face was an 
expression of deep earnestness, and in his eyes was 
the old longing, pleading look. A tear glistened 
on her cheek. She brushed it away, and taking 
the bunch of roses from her waist selected a white 
rose and a red rose, handed them to him, and with 
a soft ‘‘good-bye” she rode on. He stood looking 
after her as she went down the road, a fact of 
which Helen was quite conscious. When she had 
disappeared he kissed the roses and said: “Do 
they mean that all differences are past?” 


CHAPTER XXVIIL 


AS GOOD AS GOLD. 

“Your aunt has given us a pressing invitation 
to pay her a long visit this fall/’ said Mrs. Hun- 
gerford as she laid down the morning mail. “She 
says that you made so many friends in New York 
last spring that 37our return would be greeted with 
enthusiasm by a large circle. She does not think 
that you can afford to bury yourself in a little 
western city.” 

“Aunt is very kind and complimentary, but I 
know what she wants. She is a great believer in 
family alliances.” 

“So she is. But you seem to be afraid to make 
an application of the remark.” 

“She is thinking what a fine stroke it would be 
to form an alliance with so wealthy and well-es- 
tablished a family as the Stanvelts.” 

“Well, she is very wise and motherly, even if 
rather worldly. Having made a great success in 
marriage herself, she is justified in thinking that »he 
understands the important factors in such matters.” 

301 


302 COLONEL HUNGERFORd’s DAUGHTER 

‘‘Certainly. There is much in this matter that 
appeals to wisdom. It has given me some hard 
thinking.” 

“You have been quite meditative all summer, 
dear; couldn’t you think your way through?” 

“Almost, all but my heart.” 

“AlmostI A woman’s heart is the most of her.” 

“Well, my heart never responded when Mr. 
Stanvelt’s name was mentioned, and I think I 
could live near him a long time without glancing 
up the road to see if he was coming.” 

“Can you say that of every one else?” 

“You think me cold-hearted, mother,” replied 
Helen evasively. 

“You are something of a puzzle, Helen, even 
to your mother. However, I understand your 
theory.” 

“Yes, I have had my theories, but theories are 
like rivers, they must run into the ocean.” 

“And what is the ocean?” 

“The boundless, shoreless, bottomless word 
which names even the Omnipresent and Eternal 
Being.” 

“I should not like to have you go to New York 
and leave your heart behind.” 

“You have never seen it around here when I was 
gone, have you?” 

“No, darling, nor my own either, the last few 
years.” 


AS GOOD AS GOLD 


303 


Helen put her white arms around her mother’s 
neck and kissed her for the pretty compliment. 
Then she said: 

“We must put some flowers in the parlor, for 
Mr. Clingman is coming this evening, and he is 
very fond of flowers.” 

While she said this she still kept her arms around 
her mother’s neck and looked into her eyes. 

As the mother, gazed back into those eyes of 
wonderful depth and meaning, and saw the’ques- 
tion there, she simply said: 

“Follow your heart, my darling.” 

During the evening Mr. Clingman said to Helen : 

“When you asked me to prosecute that wife- 
beater, did you have two motives? I did not doubt 
your sincerity. But human motives are often like 
opening flowers, petals within petals, and the heart 
of the fragrance, where?” 

“Why do you ask such a question?” said Helen 
with an amused look. 

“Because, to be entirely frank, I think since I 
met you in this parlor after your return from col- 
lege, you have done a number of things to test me.” 

“Let us see, that was more than five years ago. 
Have you been keeping a notebook ever since? I 
should like to see it. I presume it reads something 
like this: 

“‘Tuesday — Tested to-day by H. H, Asked to 
make a temperance speech.’ 


304 COLONEL HUNGERFORD’s DAUGHTER 

“‘Friday — Tested again by H. H. Asked to 
prosecute a wife-beater.’” 

“Oh, that will do,” he exclaimed laughingly. 
“I withdraw the remark. It was not parliamen- 
tary anyhow.” 

“You ought to feel complimented,” she went 
on, “ when tests are applied. People who are hunt- 
ing for gold mines make tests.” 

“You struck rock that would not run much to 
the ton.” 

“You have come through splendidly.” 

“But what was the object of it all?” 

“I wanted you to be as good as gold.” 

When John Clingman was leaving, he kissed 
Helen Hungerford good-night. ^ 

The next morning Mrs. Hungerford looked 
lovingly into her daughter’s radiant face, drew her 
to her bosom, and said: 

“I always wanted it to be so.” 


THE END. 


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